


What if professor Xavier realised spider-man was a child?

by climbingup



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Tony realises he's lost Spidey, may knows peter is spidey, peter goes to the x-mansion, the x-men find out that spidey is a child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2020-02-16 18:08:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 46,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18696637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/climbingup/pseuds/climbingup
Summary: Peter jumped up the stairs to his apartment, excited to tell may about his trip to Germany with Mr Stark. Or rather the story the two of them had agreed on.Peter opened the door exclaiming excitedly ‘Aunt May, I’m ho-‘He stopped at the sight that greeted him.In their living room was a tear stained Aunt May, as well as a man in a wheel chair that Peter recognised instantly, Professor Charles Xavier, and Hank McCoy.





	1. Peter meets Charles Xavier and Hank McCoy at his house

Peter jumped up the stairs to his apartment, excited to tell may about his trip to Germany with Mr Stark. Or rather the story the two of them had agreed on.

Peter opened the door exclaiming excitedly ‘Aunt May, I’m ho-‘

 

He stopped at the sight that greeted him.

In their living room was a tear stained Aunt May, as well as a man in a wheel chair that Peter recognised instantly, Professor Charles Xavier, and Hank McCoy.

‘Wh-what’s going on?’ Peter asked, glancing worriedly from his Aunt to the professor.

May tired to speak, ‘P-Pet-Peter’ she managed to get out. Dr McCoy handed May another tissue while patting her on the back reassuringly.

‘I think it would be best if I explained’ Professor Xavier said, looking right at Peter. He shuddered, feeling as though the man was looking into his soul. ‘As you probably know I run a school for those who are shunned by the outside world, to provide a safe space for them to grow and learn. Most of the students who attend my school are carriers of the x-gene’ Professor Xavier explained. ‘Or more commonly known as mutants.’

Peter nodded, he had heard about Xavier’s academy and the rumours that surrounded the school for years but had never thought much of it.

‘Recently it has come to our attention that it is not only mutants who have special’ he searched for the right word, ‘abilities anymore.’

Peter stared to feel dread, looking at Aunt May who was becoming more upset at the professor talked. _He can’t know_ Peter thought _there’s no way. Mr Stark only found out because he’s Mr Stark, these people don’t have the resources to piece it all together_.

‘Unfortunately, we do know’ Professor Xavier said softly, looking at peter with a sad gaze. ‘When I was looking for new students, I widened my search to include those who were not mutants but still have special abilities.’

Aunt May sobbed.

Professor Xavier looked at Dr McCoy to continue. ‘When we realised that you had special abilities we decided to offer you a place in our school, but when we looked further we realised that you had begun to go out helping people, using the alias spider-man.’ Dr McCoy stated, looking worriedly at the teenager.

Peter started to deny it, shaking his head. ‘There’s no way that’s me’ he said, looking around at the three adults in the room. ‘I couldn’t do the things that spider-man does, I mean, he catches trucks’ Peter exclaimed.

 _Peter we know it’s you_ he heard. Peter turned his head trying to see if there was someone else in the flat, he knew he heard someone speak but no one had opened their mouth. _Peter_ , the voice continued, _this is how we found you_. Peter recognised the voice as the Professors and looked at him wide eyed in shock.

‘Peter, I’m a telepath’ the professor continued out loud, ‘it’s how I find all of my students, an it’s how I know you are spider-man. We have talked to you aunt and explained the situation to her, and she has agreed that you should come and stay at out school’

‘W-wh-what?’ Peter stuttered out, feeling lost.

Aunt May cleared her throat and spoke in a slightly hoarse voice, ‘Peter we’ve decided it would be best if you went to a place where you could be yourself and be taught about your abilities and how to control them. Then, when you are 18 and you have finished school, if you still wish to be spider-man I will support you.’ May stated with finality.

‘Don’t I have a say in this?’ Peter asked, feeling shocked.

‘No’

‘B-but, what about my internship? And Ned, and school?’

May looked up angrily at that. ‘I know why he took you to Germany Peter’ May said looking fierce. ‘He took you to fight Captain America, and although they came to an agreement and the avenger all came back together, he still took you to a battle with super soldier.’

Oh shit.

‘May’ Peter tried ‘I can explain.’

‘No Peter’ May said, making a cutting motion with her hand. ‘You will go and get you things, and then you will be leaving with professor Xavier and Dr McCoy.’

‘Bu-‘

‘Now.’ May interrupted.

Peter looked at the professor and Dr MCoy for help, but only saw pity in their gaze.

‘W-will I come back?’ Peter asked, ‘like, during weekends, or holidays?’

Peter saw aunt May’s expression shutter. His eyes started to water.

‘I don’t know’ May said.

Peter walked mechanically into his room and started repacking his bag, feeling like his world had shattered.


	2. Car journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter travels to the school

As Peter packs his bag he looks towards the window, judging the distance. If he could make it out then maybe, just maybe he could go to Mr Stark. Mr Stark could fix this.

Then he remembered, professor Xavier is a telepath and would probably already know his plans. There’s no point in trying. Aunt May already knows. The damage has already been done.

 

 

Peter trudged back into the living room with his things wondering where it all went wrong, why had the X-men decided to step in? They hadn’t done it before, if anything they seemed to be wilfully ignoring him, so why now? What had changed?

He didn’t have time to ask these questions, professor Xavier and Dr McCoy were already at the door talking quietly with May but stopped when they noticed his presence.

‘Ready to go?’ Professor Xavier asked kindly.

Peter just nodded.

The professor gave a sad smile and motioned for Dr McCoy to open the door and then wheeled himself out while Dr McCoy held the door open for Peter. Peter tried one last time to catch his aunts’ eye and succeeded. Please, he pleaded with his eyes, don’t let them do this.

May let out a shaky breath and smiled sadly at his, ‘This is for the best’ she said softly ‘you get to be with people who are like you, who can do things like you can do, who yourself around. And the things you can do are incredible’ she continued, ‘but I just need some time to adjust.’

Peter nodded sadly, he knew he had put her through a lot with the injuries he couldn’t explain and the sneaking out at night.

‘Come here’ aunt May said smiling softly and holding out her arms. Peter threw himself into them.

‘I’m so sorry’ He said softly into her shoulder.

‘Never be sorry for being who you are’ She replied squeezing him comfortingly. She pulled back and nudged him towards the door.

Peter smiled a small sad smile and went out the door towards the elevator. Neither of them said goodbye, it wasn’t needed. And this. This wasn’t goodbye.

He would fix this.

 

They had been in the car for over an hour in silence on their way to the school.

‘Why?’ Peter finally asked, his voice cracking. ‘Why did you come? Why now?’

Dr McCoy looked at him in the mirror while he was driving with a look of regret on his face.

‘I’m sorry Peter’ Dr McCoy started.

What? Why would he need to be sorry?

‘When we discovered spider-man we assumed he would be a mutant so we started looking into him, but when we realised it, you, weren’t a mutant we realised that there were people out there who weren’t being protected simply because they didn’t have the x-gene’

‘How’ Peter began ‘how do you know I don’t have the gene?’

‘Well’ Dr McCoy said looking sheepish ‘after one of your fights you left some blood behind that was collected and when I looked at it, I realised that you were a mutate, not a mutant’

Mutate? He must have looked confused because Dr McCoy continued.

‘mutates are people who have mutated because of an external force rather than their own DNA, like you and the Hulk.’

‘Why didn’t you stop? When you realised that I’m not a mutant’ he clarified.

‘That was because of me’ the professor began, turning to look at peter sitting next to him. ‘When we realised that there were not only mutants, but now mutates we decided to look into companies which could have dealings with human experimentation.’ He took a breath, ‘one of the companies we looked at was Oscorp.’

Peter felt himself pale.

‘Once we found the research that

‘Once we found the research on spiders, we thought that you would be one of the people who were part of the trial, but then we found out that none of the participants had survived. We thought you might have been a disgruntled employee or someone in the research group who had decided to continue the research themselves, so we looked further to discover your identity. I was worried that someone who had experimented on themselves wouldn’t be stable’

This had all happed because they had assumed he was a mutant. Great.

‘Once we found out how old you are we started looking into other like you who had been involved in accidents that caused their abilities to form’ the professor continued. ‘While we were looking into this we noticed that other people had as well. Young mutates had started disappearing.’ The professor looked grim.

‘What do you mean disappearing?’ Peter demanded. There were people like him out there? And they were vanishing?

‘Their parents were contacted’ the professor replied. ‘They were told that their children could be fixed if they took them to the facility.’

Fixed? What do you mean fixed? There was nothing wrong with them.

‘We found one of these facilities and saved the people inside. They had been experimented on by the government, they wanted to find a way to weaponize their abilities. When we confronted them about it we were told that there was no record of anything like that happening, but if there were mutates out there then they would be considered illegal inhuman experiments and they would be detained.’

Peter felt his anger start to flow away. People like him were being experimented on all so some scientist could make the next great weapon.

Dr McCoy cleared his throat and continued. ‘I decided it would be better to get in contact as soon as we could so I went to speak with you, but we couldn’t find you and it didn’t look like you were in the city. When we found out you had gone to Germany with Ironman, we assumed that you aunt knew that you were Spiderman.’

Peter looked flatly at him. They may have been trying to save him, but they had also just blown up his life.

‘Sorry’ Dr McCoy grimaced. ‘When I heard you were coming back, I decided to talk with your aunt before you arrived. But when I started talking to her it was clear she knew very little, and she demanded to know what a mutant school wanted with her perfectly ordinary nephew. So, I called the professor for help.’

‘But did you have to tell her I’m Spiderman?’ Peter asked feeling irritated, if it was clear she knew nothing then why did they tell her?

‘Technically we didn’t tell her that you’re Spiderman’ Dr McCoy defended.

What?

‘When we told her about mutates.' The professor clarified. 'she wanted to know how yours had occurred, and she made the connection from there.’ 

That was as good as telling her.

The professor suddenly looked out the window. ‘We’re here’ he said.

The car turned through a pair of iron gates and glided down a long drive to stop at a large brick house.

‘Welcome to Xavier’s school for the gifted’


	3. The school and Logan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is shown around the school and meets Logan

The wooden doors opened into a large entryway with, what Peter assumed were students, milling about. Why are they here? Peter thought, fidgeting with the strap of his backpack.

As if guessing his question Dr McCoy began to speak as he showed Peter around. ‘Most of the students live here for the entire year as do all of the teachers.’ At Peter’s questioning look he grimaced. ‘There are still many people who don’t take well to finding out their family members are mutants and decide that rather than finding ways to help them it would be better if they just didn’t acknowledge their existence anymore. There are many people here who have been thrown out by their families or who have been hunted by anti-mutant organisations because of people they trusted.’

As they walked around the school people looked at Peter curiously wondering who he was, but no one approached. Professor Xavier noticed Peter’s confusion and smiled. ‘Here we value privacy. It is your choice when or if you tell people about your abilities and your life before you came here, no one will pressure you about it.’ They stopped at what appeared to be an office. ‘I’ll leave you here. Hank will show you to your room and tell you about your class timetable, but if you ever need anything my door is always open.’ He then wheeled himself into his office and out of Peter’s sight.

 

 

‘This is your room’ Dr McCoy, or Hank as professor Xavier had referred to him as, said opening a wooden door into a large room with a double bed, a desk, a night stand, a chest of draws and a wardrobe. ‘Supper will be in two hours in the dining room, or if you prefer to make your own food or a snack the kitchen is always open.’

‘Where’s my stuff?’ Peter asked, suddenly remembering that he left his suitcase in the car.

‘Don’t worry about that’ he was told, ‘Logan will bring it up later, he knows which room you’re in.’ Then Dr McCoy closed the door leaving Peter alone with his thoughts.

Peter dropped his bag onto the bed and sat numbly for a while. If mutates were being targeted, then that meant aunt May would be in danger. Wait, that wasn’t right, she was normal, she would be safe. And no one knew his secret identity so why had they decided that they needed to get him out of there as quickly as possible? Wait. Did they think that once aunt May knew she would hand him over to be experimented on?

Indignation swept through him. Aunt May would never do that to him. She loved him. Peter began to rifle through his bag for his phone, if he could just get in contact with her, he could sort this all out.

Where is it. Where is it whereisitwhereisitwhereisi-

There was a knocking in the door. Peter takes a breath to collect himself and then opens the door. There was a lumberjack on the other side. A lumberjack. A tall broad lumberjack in jeans and a plaid shirt.

‘H-Hi’ Peter stuttered, suddenly nervous holding the door awkwardly. The man gives him an unimpressed look and moves past him into his room. It’s then that Peter notices the man carrying his bag, this must be Logan.

‘Thanks’ Peter says quietly, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

‘Don’t mention it’ Logan says and strides towards the door. He pauses with his hand on the door handle, then turns to face Peter. ‘You’re not the only one who was effected by an experiment’ Logan says finally and, at peter look of confusion he holds up a fist and then freaking. Metal. Claws. Break through his skin.

‘Wolverine’ Peter breathes. He knows about wolverine. The world does, he’s a member of the X-men but there’s a rumour that he lost his memory because of an experiment that was done to him.

Wolverine nods his head as he retracts his claws, ‘it’s better that Charles found you first, trust me. I know.’ Then he turned and left the room.

Shit.

Okay maybe this is more serious than he thought. But that means that Aunt May is in even more danger, if they could hurt Wolverine, The Wolverine, then they would have no problem hurting his aunt to get to him. He needed to get back so he could protect her, but not today, they would be expecting it today. Peter then proceeded to unpack, thinking about the best way to get back to his aunt without the X-men finding out and stopping him. He needed to make them relax, make them think he wasn’t going to leave so they let their guard down. A week. He would stay a week. And then he would leave.

The missing phone was forgotten.

 

 

In his office Charles Xavier sighed and turned to look at Hank and Logan. ‘He’s planning to run away in a week’ he told them.

Logan nodded, not looking surprised, ‘He didn’t become Spiderman by sitting around and doing nothing.’

‘He’s obviously driven to help people and if he thinks that anyone is in danger because of him then he’ll feel he has to protect them’ Charles sighed, it was so much easier dealing with them before they started working as heroes, once they did it was almost impossible to stop them.

‘What do you want us to do?’ Hank asked him seriously, looking worried.

‘Just keep an eye on him, try to make him comfortable enough that he doesn’t feel he needs to leave’

‘And if he still does?’ Logan challenged him.

‘If it comes to that’ Charles said ‘let him go, we don’t want to make him a prisoner here. It’s ultimately his choice if he decides to stay.’ He then motioned to them to leave, he needed time to think about what to do next. Peter needed help, but as things were currently going, he wouldn’t accept the help they offered.


	4. Bobby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter meets Bobby

When Peter went into the dining room, he saw a buffet that people were lining up at and sighed. Time to get used to his new normal, for now.

As he stood in line more and more people were glancing at him, wondering who he was and what his abilities were. Peter could hear the whispered conversations

‘Why is he-‘

‘-brought him here earlier-‘

‘-came with the professor-‘

‘-shown around by Dr McCoy-‘

But the one that really caught his attention was, ‘-saw Logan carrying his luggage, he never does that.’ So, they really had been trying to manipulate him, Peter thought looking around the room. When he finally reached the buffet he picked up a plate and tried to decide what to have. There was so much choice, chicken, ham, fish and steak.

‘The steak’s always good’ a voice said beside him. Peter turned to see the owner of the voice, it was a boy around his age with brown hair and an easy-going smile playing on his lips. ‘I’m Bobby’ The boy said.

‘Peter’ he replied reluctantly, taking the boys advice and picking up a piece of steak to put on his plate, then he turned away to walk over to the next station to grab some chips and carrots.

‘Nice to meet you’ The same voice, Bobby his mind supplied, said from next to him.

Once again peter gave a force smile and turned away to find somewhere to sit.

‘You can sit with me’ Bobby offered, ‘c’mon’ he said and nodding his head in the direction of a table several other people on it.

‘No thanks’ Peter replied shaking his head slightly. At Bobby’s questioning look he elaborated, ‘I just got here today so I was just going to eat quickly’

Bobby seemed to accept this excuse and nodded, ‘If you change your mind’ Bobby said looking serious, ‘there’s always a seat open’. Peter smiled and then made his way to one of the empty tables to quickly eat his food.

 

When Peter was almost done another person sat down at the table. It was wolverine. What does he want Peter wondered, but when he didn’t say anything Peter started to eat again. If he was honest with himself he needed a lot more food than he had taken, but is he was leaving as soon as he was planning then a week of less food wouldn’t really do him any harm.

‘You can have more you know’ wolverine said in between bites.

Peter looked at him questioningly and wolverine rolled his eyes. ‘It’s normal for you lot to eat a lot more than most people’ Logan said, almost as an afterthought.

You people? What did he mean by that?

Logan just smirked and went back to eating his food.

Oh right, Peter thought, mutates. It was strange thinking of himself as part of you people when he had assumed he was on his own for so long, refusing to believe or even hope that something similar had happened to other people.

Well, Peter acknowledged, they were the ones who wanted him here and apparently they already knew about his need for extra food, so why not.

Peter decided he was going to eat as much as he wanted, and maybe if they saw how much he ate they would want him to leave, so he went up for seconds. And thirds. And fourths. And a fifth.

By the time he was full most of the people in the dining room had finished eating and had left, but wolverine was still there, watching, keeping him company, but not saying anything. It was like he knew peter didn’t want to talk.

 

 

Later that night, when Peter assumed everyone would be asleep, he left his room to search the building for possible exit points reasoning that if something did happen and he needed to leave quickly it would be better if he could get out as quickly as possible. While he was walking around, he heard voices coming from the kitchen and decided to look inside.

There were children, as young as 5 years old sitting in front of the tv flicking through the channels. Wait. Was that kid changing the channels by blinking? Peter looked more closely and decided that yes, yes he really was doing that.

The floorboards creaked behind Peter, who whirled around ready to fight whoever was attacking him. He stilled. It was Dr McCoy and another man with some red sunglasses on.

‘Peter, this is Scott’ Dr McCoy greeted, motioning to the man standing slightly behind him. Peter nodded his head cautiously towards the new person wondering whether he could trust him.

‘Cyclops’ Scott said nodding back, ‘I’ve heard a lot about you Peter, I’ll see you in my class tomorrow.’ The man then turned and walked away leaving Peter confused, are they allowed to stay up all night?

Dr McCoy looked past Peter into the kitchen and sighed at the sight of the eight young kids watching the tv. ‘Everyone whose mutation does not leave them unable to sleep go to bed’ he announced startling Peter. There were mutations which meant you didn’t need to sleep? When no one moved Dr McCoy walked into the room and started shooing all of the children but one to bed, the one who could change the channel by blinking his eyes.

‘Is he okay?’ Peter asked suddenly, when Dr McCoy returned, nodding towards the boy left in alone in the kitchen.

Dr McCoy smiled at Peter, not one of those I’m humouring him smiles but a genuine one. ‘While I won’t tell you what his mutation, I can tell you that he is fine staying up at night. You don’t need to worry about it.’

Peter was about to ask why his mutation allowed him to not need sleep but caught himself, the kids here were like him and the professor had said that if he didn’t want to tell people about himself then he didn’t have to. He should leave it alone as it seemed like a mutation was a very private thing for these people, or at least something the person needed to tell you themselves.

Peter then let himself be taken back to his room and said goodnight to Dr McCoy, there would be other nights when he could look around.


	5. Adjusting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby tries to become friends with Peter

‘Beep, Beep, Be-‘ the sound cut off half way.

Peter lifted his head off the pillow looking around the room blearily, them panicked.

Where am I? He thought panicking, as he leapt from the bed to into a defensive position in case someone entered the room. It didn’t look like he was kidnapped, who would leave him in such a nice room. Peter started to search the wardrobe, why were his clo-

It all came back. The journey back from Germany, meeting the professor, Aunt May saying that she didn’t know when she would see him again, coming to this school and meeting several of the X-men.

Peter sighed, time to start his plan of waiting for them to let their guard down.

Peter dressed quickly throwing on a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt, not comfortable enough to wear one of his science pun ones. As he left the room he looked around and saw people using their mutations in the open, one boy teleporting from one end of the room to the other in small jumps while sneaking up on people to scare them and a girl who walked through a wall at the end of the corridor. Peter was stunned, watching no one bat an eyelid at the extraordinary display. Wow. When they said that they were creating a safe space for mutants they really meant it.

He shook his head and continued towards the dining room, which was a lot fuller than it had been last night. Peter decided he would come back later and walked towards the do-

A person stepped in front of him. It was the boy from last night, Bobby.

‘Hey, have you had breakfast yet?’

‘Yeah’ Peter lied, unconvincingly if Bobby’s face was anything to go by.

‘You’re eating with me’ Bobby suddenly announced, putting his hand on Peter’s shoulder to steer him towards the buffet, applying a bit more pressure when he started to move away.

‘You don’t have to do this’ Peter said, a little exasperatedly.

Bobby snapped towards Peter, ‘what?’ he asked confused. ‘What don’t I have to do?’

‘This’ Peter said gesturing to the gap between them. ‘This whole looking after, being king to the new kid thing. I’m sure you have much better things to do with your time than babysit me.’ Peter turned to leave, cursing himself for letting some of his anger show.

Bobby grabbed Peter’s shoulder and spun him around. ‘Let me make something clear’ Bobby said looking straight at him, almost as if he were looking into his soul. ‘I am not talking to you because I have to, no one told me to, and I’m not talking to you because I think you need to be babysat. You are new here, and when people come here, they find it strange and completely different to anywhere else they’ve been before. So, I think you need a friend.’

Peter stared at him mute. He nodded silently.

‘Sorry’ Peter said quietly, ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’ The he left the room using some of his speed to make sure Bobby couldn’t catch up to him.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Way to go Peter he thought, you just insulted the one person your age who has tried to reach out to you and be you friend.

Peter started breathing quicker, panicking, playing the conversation over and over in his head. Why, why whywhywhywh-

Slap

He snapped his head up.

Bobby. A panicked Bobby who looked at him with wild eyes.

‘Are you okay?’ Bobby asked, looking Peter over.

‘yeah, yeah I’m fine’ Peter said, trying to play off the panic attack.

‘Bullshit’ Bobby bit out the word, ‘what the hell was that?’ he demanded ‘I said your name three times, it was like you couldn’t hear me.’ A look of comprehension settled on his face. ‘Panic attack’ he stated.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Peter tried again ‘Panic attack? What? No’. Bobby raised an unimpressed eyebrow. ‘So what if it was?’ Peter snapped, feeling defensive.

‘Professor Xavier could help’ Bobby said ‘he does therapy when people need it, or Jean’ Bobby tried when he saw the refusal on Peter’s face. ‘Just thing about it. Please.’

Peter nodded jerkily once. Fine, he would think about it.

He accepted Bobby’s hand to his feet, then started to make his way back to his room again, only to be stopped by a hand.

‘Nuh-uh’ Bobby said, shaking his head. ‘Breakfast.’ He then proceeded to drag peter to the dining room.

 

 

When they were finished eating Bobby asked, ‘What’s your first class?’

Umm, huh he didn’t know. When he conveyed this to Bobby he said ‘maybe they’re just leaving you to get settled today.’ Then a bell went off.

‘Sorry I’ve got to go’ Bobby said getting up and looking apologetic, ‘I have history’.

‘I’ll walk with you’ Peter decided, if he was here he may as well know where the classrooms are.

 

 

When they stopped outside a classroom Peter was shocked by how small the classes were, it looked like there were only fifteen desks in the room, the smallest class he had been in was thirty. Then he saw wolverine in the room.

‘What’s wolverine doing here?’ He asked Bobby.

‘Logan? He teaches history’ Bobby told him easily, then grimaced and started walking into the room. ‘And he’s seen me. See ya.’

‘yeah, bye’ Peter murmured, confused that the X-men were teaching, but then again the school is run by professor Xavier, the man the X-men were named after so maybe it wasn’t so strange after all.

With nothing left to do Peter started to wander again until he found himself outside.

He breathed in a deep breath and marvelled at how clean the air was. It’s so peaceful out here Peter thought, but if he was honest with himself it was a little unnerving when he was used to the sounds and smells of the city. While he was looking around he noticed how tall the building was.

Well, he thought, kicking off his shoes, no one told he couldn’t go on the roof.

 

As he climbed the side of the building he was careful to keep out of view of the windows in case someone was looking and would realise that he was Spiderman. It was freeing to be out in the open climbing without his suit on, without worrying who would try to attack him next.

Once he reached to roof, he pulled himself up and looked at the area around the building to see if there were any buildings nearby, but all he could see were trees. Peter settled onto the roof to think over everything that had happened in the last few days, feeling relaxed for the first time since he had arrived now that he was up high.


	6. From the rooftop to the ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is seen on the roof by other students

It feels great up here, Peter marvelled as the wind curled through his hair. The air smelt so clean and the sky was so blue, it was so relaxing. Peter started to close his eyes and leaned forwards a little then snapped his eyes open when he heard a gasp.

There were people looking up at him. Multiple people. Very concerned people who looked like they thought he was going to hurt himself.

Oops.

He suddenly felt the wind currents start to change and looked around to see a person floating towards him with white eyes. Storm, the X-man who manipulates weather. He stood up and started walking back towards the middle of the roof, never taking his eyes off her.

Storm smiled at him and dropped down to stand in front of him and held out her hand ‘I’m Ororo’ she introduced herself, ‘and you must be Peter. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Peter raised his eyebrows at her silently asking what she had been told.

She gave him a knowing smile ‘nothing too bad, but the professor told us not to worry if we saw someone climbing the walls in the literal sense of the word, though I don’t think he realised that you would climb onto the roof.’

Peter stayed silent, preparing his argument for when he inevitably told him he had to get off the roof and gave him his punishment. But to his surprise she simply walked to the edge of the roof, and when she turned around again her eyes had turned white.

‘The professor wanted me to let you know that he would like to speak with you when you decide to come back down’ Then she stepped off the roof.

 

 

Why, why why?

Why didn’t she force me off the roof? Peter wondered, confused. She knows who I am, but that doesn’t mean that I should be allowed up on the roof without consequence, if I had done this at midtown I would have had a month of detention, even if they knew about my mutation. She didn’t even talk about punishing me.

The school was confusing to Peter, the classes are smaller, the teachers seem to know everyone’s names and their mutations and, most of all, they didn’t punish him for climbing onto the roof, even though he knew, in so part of his mind, that if he was found out he would be in trouble. People don’t just get let off when do dangerous things like he did, they don’t just get told that the head of the school would like them to know that they would like to talk when they decide to come down from the roof. He wasn’t even given a time when he had to be down by. It felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him, all of the rules he had learned from school and society seemed to not work here. It’s like this place has its own culture and rules, separate from the rest of society, but with just enough similarities that once people leave they can act like they are the same as the rest of the world.

Maybe it’s a test he thought, maybe they are seeing how long I take to go down and I get my punishment when I go and see professor Xavier. He didn’t like not knowing the rules, not knowing what the consequence would be.

He sat there for a while longer going round and around in circles trying to figure out what they were thinking and what would happen when he went to see the professor.

Screw it he thought getting to his feet and he walked to the edge of the roof.

People.

There were still people.

Peter sighed and walked to the other end of the roof trying to find a way to climb down without being seen. It was clear.  He judged the distance, looking to see if he could jump it safely but it was too high. Oh well, he though and climbed halfway down before jumping.

 

 

Peter knocked on the door.

‘Come in.’

He opened the door, prepared to see a look of disappointment of the professor’s face, or at least a look of disapproval, but what he saw was a spark of joy in the man’s eyes. It stunned him for a moment, why was he happy?

Professor Xavier motioned towards a sofa to the side of the room, away from the desk at the far end of the room. Peter felt uneasy not knowing what to expect, he had always talked to his old principle with the desk separating them to create a more professional atmosphere. He walked slowly towards the seat that the man indicated, waiting for him to change his mind and decide that the conversation had to happen at the desk.

He sank into the sofa still watching the professor waiting for the lecturing to start.

Professor Xavier smiled.

What?

‘I’m glad you feel comfortable enough here to use your abilities without hiding your identity’ the professor said, holding eye contact with Peter.

Isn’t that what this place is all about? Peter wondered

‘Yes. It is.’ the professor answered out loud startling him. ‘My apologies, I didn’t mean to intrude but you looked worried when you came in, so I just wanted to make sure everything is okay. I try to stay out of other people thoughts usually.’

That made sense, most people would be on edge if a telepath could see into their mind anytime they wanted.

‘It’s alright’ Peter said self-consciously. ‘But if I’m not in trouble for being on the roof then why am I here?’

‘I just wanted to check in with you, see how you are settling in, but we do need to talk about the roof.’

Peter braced himself.

‘If you decide to go up there again could you let someone know?’ The professor asked. ‘That way we won’t be worried if we’re told that there is someone on the roof again’

‘So you aren’t mad?’ Peter asked, confused but also relieved.

‘Of course not. We don’t punish people for doing things that are natural with their mutations, like you need to be high up. That and being upside-down are probably due to your spider DNA.’ The professor explained. ‘But’

Here it comes Peter thought.

‘The next time you are that high up, could you wear your web shooter? That way we know you’ll be safe if you fall off’

Wait, so not only were they expecting him to do it again, they were also giving him ways to do to it better?

Wow.

This place is weird.

They continued chatting for a while about what he had done for the last day and a bit before his stomach started to rumble. Peter moved to get his phone out to check the time, but then he remembered that he couldn’t find his phone last night and decided to ask about it.

‘Have you seen my phone? I thought I had it with me when I left but when I started to unpack, I couldn’t find it.’

The professor looked confused, ‘no, and if it had fallen out in the car Hank would have said something. He decided to check the car to make sure that nothing had been left behind.’

Peter hummed thinking about it. If it wasn’t here and it wasn’t in the car then it could only be at home. At home. Home. Where Aunt May was. The Aunt May who said she didn’t know when they would see each other again. The Aunt May he needed his phone to contact so he could convince her that he belonged with her. The Aunt May he needed to tell he was sorry. The Aunt May who he had hurt. The Aunt May who hat-

_Peter._

He paused.

_Peter._

There it was again. Where was it coming from? And where was he? He looked up from where he was on the floor, searching the room for anything familiar. A man in a wheel chair was in front of him. Who is he. Who is he whoishe whoishewhoishewhoish-

 _Peter._ It was louder this time.

_Peter, I need you to listen to me. You’re having a panic attack and I need you to breathe. In and out. In and out._

Peter followed what the voice said, realising that he was struggling to breathe properly.

_That’s it, in and out._

‘Peter, can you hear me?’ the man in front of him, who he now recognised as professor Xavier, asked.

‘Y-yeah’ Peter stuttered out, scrambling back onto the sofa in an effort to look normal.

‘Does this happen often?’ he asked.

‘N-no’ Peter lied.

The professor gave him a disapproving stare.

Peter slouched and sighed. ‘It’s been a problem for a while, ever since my uncle died.’ He admitted. ‘But it’s usually fine now, it’s just when-‘ he stopped, realising what he was about to say.

‘Just when what?’ the professor asked, looking worried.

‘Just when I don’t know what’s going on’

‘and when you’re in a new place you don’t know what’s going to happen so you can’t prepare yourself’ the professor realised.

Peter nodded once, looking at the floor.

‘Alright’ the professor said.

Peter looked up, alright what?

‘We can have Hank make some anti-anxiety medication for you to take if you’d like, and you can also have therapy session with myself or Jean Grey.’ The professor continued. ‘Would you like to do any of that?’

‘uh’ Peter said feeling overwhelmed by what had just happened. Usually he would just be given the option of going to the school counsellor, not offered medication made specifically for him or therapy with the head of a school. ‘Can I think about it?’ he eventually asked.

‘Of course, take all the time you need’ the professor said soothingly, ‘and if you ever need anything my door is always open, no matter how small it is.’

Peter nodded and thanked him, then he made his escape into the hall.


	7. Placement tests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter takes placement tests to see which classes he'll be in

Peter lay on his bed looking up at the ceiling wondering what had happened in the office. Nothing made any sense, he was told that it was fine to climb onto the roof, even when he had been sitting on the edge, the only thing the professor asked was that he have his web shooters on next time so that if he fell he could catch himself.

This place is weird Peter decided, and no amount of thinking about it was going to change that.

At least he was aloud to climb things he mused; he didn’t know what he would do if he couldn’t be up that high anymore. He was used to swinging between sky scrapers and perching on the edges of rooves waiting for crime so that he could help, it felt weird now, with people around him who could do strange things all around him playing with their abilities out in the open, without fear of persecution.

Peter got up from his bed and started to look around his room for his suite so that he could remove the web shooters. It wasn’t that the professor had asked him to wear them the next time he went up to the roof and he would rather just be able to go up instead of having to go back to his room to find them, it was just that he was so used to wearing them just in case something happened that he needed to help with that his wrists felt bear without them.

He froze while looking through the chest of draws for the suite, suddenly remembering that he had left it at his, Aunt May’s flat. He had been so preoccupied with what was going on that he hadn’t paid attention to what he was putting in his bag, and he had been resentful that Spiderman was the reason that he was losing his aunt and everything he had known that he had thrown the suite across the room. And he had never picked it back up. But maybe, just maybe, he lunged for his backpack and tipped it out onto his bed, sifting through the items looking for it. It had to be here, he wouldn’t have removed it, it always stayed he-

Aha, found them.

He slid his old web shooters onto his wrists, the ones that he was always experimenting on and trying to improve, then he checked the cannister holding his web fluid. Almost out. He didn’t think that he would have the free reign he normally had in chemistry to make his web fluid under the table. This school seemed like they payed more attention to the students and they kept a better record of what chemicals they had.

But Peter thought going over what the professor had said to him, maybe they would be fine with he making his web fluid here, if it meant that he would be safer going up onto the roof.

 

Peter knocked on the professor’s office and waited to be let in, bouncing nervously on his feet. The door opened, and Peter was startled to see not Professor Xavier but Dr McCoy holding the door open and looking at him expectantly.

‘uh, umm’ Peter stammered as his brain froze, then he started backing away from the door wide eyed ‘I can come back later’ and he turned to go.

‘Wait’

Peter turned to look back at Dr McCoy enquiringly. The man stood to the side and jerked his head towards the office ‘come in’.

Peter swallowed nervously and nodded once, steeling himself as he walked the short distance into the room. He saw the professor looking at him from where he sat behind his desk and went to stand in front of him.

Peter swallowed and then began to speak ‘you said that if I went up on the roof again you wanted me to wear my web shooters’

The professor opened his mouth to speak but Peter ploughed on, knowing that if he stopped now he wouldn’t continue.

‘well I have my shooter but I don’t have enough web fluid so I can’t use them, and I normally just make the fluid in my chemistry class but I’m not at the same school anymore so I can’t. but I was uh, wondering if I could, uh, use a lab here to make some.’ Peter finished and then looked back up at the professor, having started to shift his gaze while he was rambling.  

‘we can do that’ the professor answered calmly, ‘but first there are some tests I would like you to do’

Tests? What kind of tests?

‘They’re placement tests so we can see where you are in terms of specific subjects, so that if you need help with any subject or you are more advanced that your age group in subjects we can adjust your classes’ the professor elaborated, watching Peter closely to ensure he understood that the test weren’t for his abilities as some of his previous students had assumed.

Peter blinked, stunned that they would let him do more advanced work if he was more advanced than other students, at Midtown they had AP classes but that was it and if you needed any extra help they would try to set you up with a tutor but ultimately it was up to you to make sure you passed the class.

‘Of course, sir’ Peter said nodding his head.

‘Hank will monitor your tests, but if you need a break between them just say.’ The professor paused and looked at the time. ‘However, you probably won’t get all of them done before supper time.’

Peter nodded again and then asked, ‘and once I’ve finished the tests I can make my web fluid?’

Professor Xavier nodded, ‘as long as there is an adult there to make sure it’s safe then yes’, and he smiled at the grin that Peter was trying to hide. ‘I’ve also heard that you weren’t seen at lunch so get some food on the way’ then he dismissed him.

Peter nodded and thanked the professor while smiling shyly, then turned to Dr McCoy who suddenly asked while walking out of the office ‘you didn’t eat lunch?’

Mutely Peter shook his head, noticing the exasperation on the man’s face as they headed down the hallway.

‘Peter’ he sighed ‘you know you need more food than an average person’

‘Oops’ Peter offered, shrugging slightly with a sheepish expression on his face, ‘my bad’

Dr McCoy just rolled his eyes and motion for Peter to follow him towards the kitchen.

 

 

Peter sighed and stretched, having finished his fourth exam, Chemistry, after completing Biology, Geography and History. He moved the exam to the done pile and started on his fifth, Maths, quickly flipping through the pack before going back to the first question to methodically write out his answers, hoping that if he got full marks he could do something more exciting than simple algebra and trigonometry.

Hank sat and watched the boy go through test after test as quickly as he could, obviously relishing at the science based ones but grimacing when any essay writing had to be done. He buffed an amused chuckle when Peter finished his Maths test in 30 minutes when it should have taken at least two hours before he reached for another one. This time Peter groaned and Hank had to hold in a laugh when he saw the boy starting with betrayed eyes at the English essay questions. ‘Would you like a break before you start that one?’ Hank question.

‘No it’s fine’ Peter replied staring at the paper, already planning the essay in his head, ‘I’d rather get them over with quickly.’

Hank just hummed and nodded, noticing how he worked diligently, even on subjects which were obviously not his favourite.

 

 

‘Alright, it’s supper time’ Dr McCoy announced startling Peter, who was just finishing his essay. He quickly scribbled out the last few sentences and handed his finished pile to Dr McCoy who flipped through it. History, Geography, Biology, Chemistry and English, not bad for a few hours of work Hank thought before he tucked the exams under his arm and walked with Peter towards the dining room.

The pair grabbed a plate of food, or Peter tried to grab only one plate of food, and then filled up a second cowed by the look Dr McCoy gave him, and then sat down at an empty table. Just as they had started to eat another plate dropped on Peter’s left and someone threw themselves into the chair groaning. Peter turned to look at the grimacing Bobby before giving him a confused look.

‘Are you okay?’ Peter asked slightly concerned while Dr McCoy his a smile.

‘No, I’m dying’ Bobby groaned out.

‘Don’t be so dramatic’ another person said as they pulled out the chair opposite to Bobby, ‘it was only one test’ the girl said rolling her eyes.

‘Logan’s test. Which I failed’ Bobby repeated looking directly into the girl’s eyes before flopping onto the table and resting his head on his arms.

The girl smirked and then looked at Peter ‘Hi, I’m Kitty’ she said nodding towards Peter.

‘Peter’ he introduced himself ‘is he okay?’ he asked gesturing towards Bobby.

‘He’s fine’ she said shrugging a shoulder nonchalantly, ‘he just tends to get a bit dramatic’

Bobby’s head shot up at that, ‘do not’

‘Do too’

‘Do not’

‘Do too’

Do no-‘

‘Children’ Dr McCoy interrupted, ‘is this really the best impression to give Peter on his second day here?’

‘Sorry’ they both muttered, looking like scolded children, startling a laugh out of Peter.

Bobby looked at him and grinned apologetically, ‘sorry, I tried to keep them away so you could settle in more, but she wouldn’t listen to me.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t want him to think he was stuck with you’ Kitty bickered back, smiling slightly, obviously taking delight in getting a rise out of him. Bobby just rolled his eyes before asking ‘so how was your day today? I heard you hung out on the roof for a while and that Ororo went up because no one knew who it was.’

Peter blushed; a bit embarrassed at what had happened.

‘That was you?’ Kitty blurted out looking slightly shocked. ‘That’s impressive’ she said looking at Peter accusingly. ‘You caused a lot of chatter, though not as much as I did when I walked through a wall into a classroom on my first day.’ She smirked and looked at Bobby, ‘or as much as he did when he frosted an entire room while he was trying to cool his ice-cream.’

‘you frosted an entire room’ Peter choked out through his laughter.

Bobby looked slightly chagrined and sighed, ‘when most of us come here we don’t have that much control apart from not using out abilities, so it takes a while for us to be able to use them properly.’ At Peter’s slightly panicked and apologetic look he hurried to add ‘but it is funny looking back on it, and it was just frustrating at the time.’

‘So’ Kitty said clearing her throat to interrupt the awkwardness brewing, ‘what classes do you have tomorrow?’

‘Oh, um’ Peter stammered, getting whiplash from the sudden change in conversations, ‘I don’t know yet, but I’ve been doing tests today to figure out what classes I’m going in.’

Both Kitty and Bobby nodded with an understanding look on their faces, they knew that the really smart student always took placement tests so that they wouldn’t get bored in class, though they doubted Peter knew that and from the warning look Dr McCoy was giving them they shouldn’t mention it.

‘How many do you have left?’ Bobby asked, looking interested.

‘Just a few I think’ Peter said and looked towards Dr McCoy for conformation.

‘You’ve finished five, so you only have a few more left, Physics, Spanish, French and RE I think’ Dr McCoy replied looking thoughtful. ‘And once you’ve finished and we’ve marked them all we’ll give you your classes.’

Peter nodded and was going to ask about his web fluid but stopped when he remembered Bobby and Kitty were there. He might like them, and Bobby might know about his anxiety attacks but he wasn’t ready for anyone who didn’t have to to know about Spiderman yet.

He changed the conversation and continued eating looking forward to making his web fluid the next day.

 


	8. Finishing exams and disappointments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets to know Kitty better and Dr McCoy can't proctor the exams

Peter woke up before the alarm, lying in bed excited to be making his web fluid later in the day. He had too much energy to just lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off so he jumped up aiming to land in front of his wardrobe, but he overshot and just avoided faceplanting into the wall. Catching himself he stilled on the wall, deciding that while he had time he would explore the rest of his room. He crawled to the ceiling and then, realising that there was nothing left to do flipped onto the floor, landing lightly on his feet. Then he jumped.

In front of him was a head coming out of the wall. He stared at it wide eyed, then recognised her as Kitty, the girl he met the night before.

‘Don’t do that to me’ Peter said, clutching his chest to emphasise his point.

Kitty smiled and stepped fully into the room with a sheepish smile on her face, ‘sorry, but I heard a bang and didn’t know if you were awake or not, and I didn’t want to wake you up by knocking on the door.’

Peter blushed, ‘uh yeah, I may have walked into a wall.’

Kitty chuckled at that, ‘yeah I guessed that, but then I saw you on the ceiling’

Peter froze, then opened his mouth to deny it. Then closed it again. She had already heard Bobby saying that it was him on the roof yesterday so he couldn’t really deny it.

Kitty spoke before he could think of a reply ‘don’t worry I won’t tell anyone, it’s your decision when you decide to tell people what you can do.’ She smiled at him and stepped out of the room while saying ‘I’ll stay in the kitchen if you want to join me.’

Peter shook his head, smiling at her acceptance. He always had a moment of panic at thinking about people finding out about what he could do and judging him for it. The school was like a breath of fresh air, they didn’t push him and on one was lurking around the corner waiting to insult him about his lack of wealth or picking apart his test scores trying to one up him. It was nice.

He dressed more quickly than the day before, but sill with care. Although he had only met nice people he didn’t know if there would be the odd judgemental person.

 

 

He pushed open the kitchen door quietly, looking to see who was inside and on seeing only Kitty deciding to scare her. He crawled quietly onto the ceiling above her and jumped down silently so he was breathing on the back of her neck.

Kitty turned around slowly and screamed as she saw someone. Reacting quickly she grabbed the person and sunk into the floor to trap them, then she surfaced to see who it was. And froze.

‘Peter’ she cursed, ’what were you thinking?’

‘Well I wasn’t expecting this’ he tried to defend himself and opened his mouth to ask.

The door to the kitchen crashed open with Wolverine and Cyclops rushing in, ready to fight the intruder and make sure the student who screamed was safe. They froze when they saw the sheepish students, Kitty standing looking slightly exasperated and Peter stuck halfway in the floor looking slightly embraced.

‘Sorry’ Peter offered, cringing slightly, only to be surprised when Wolverine started laughing, and when he looked to Cyclops he saw the slight smile on the man’s face.

‘We’ll tell them it was a false alarm’ Cyclops said while he turned to leave, shaking his head slightly.

Peter and Kitty stayed silent as they left and then looked at each other, then they burst out laughing.

 

When the pair arrived at breakfast they were still laughing quietly, glancing at each other and then being set off on another round of laughter.

Bobby joined them when they had just been set off on another round of snickering. He glared at them.

‘Why are you so happy? Did you not get woken up by the screaming earlier?’ He questioned looking slightly irritated.

Peter and Kitty shared a look and started sniggering again.

Bobby looked at them suspiciously, and then a look of resignation settled on his face. ‘it was you wasn’t it.’ He stated in a monotone voice.

‘Sorry’ Peter said, feeling slightly apologetic that he woke him up early, but not really regretting trying to scare Kitty because it had brought them closer.

‘No, you’re not.’ Bobby accused, sighing slightly.

‘No, I’m not’ Peter admitted, sounding nonplussed, then he jerked his head up when he saw Dr McCoy.

‘Well someone’s eager to start taking their tests’ Kitty commented looking slightly disbelieving.

‘It’s not that’ Peter replied without thinking, ‘I get to go into the lab and work on some stuff once I’m finished.’ His eyes followed Dr McCoy, frowning slightly when he saw him conferring with Cyclops and a woman who he assumed was Jean Grey. He grew concerned when the conversation went on for a while, as they all whispered furiously at each other and Wolverine joined them looking serious. He tried to listen to what they were saying, focusing to pick out their conversation from the noise, but before he could single out their conversation they broke apart and Dr McCoy headed towards him.

He looked apologetic as he approached Peter and spoke as soon as he stood in front of him. ‘Peter, I’m really sorry but I can’t monitor your exams today, but I promise I’ll get them back to you by tomorrow. If you go back to the room you were taking them in Kurt should be there.’ Then he rushed off.

Peter paused, slightly stunned and then turned to look at the other two. ‘That was weird, right?’ He questioned.

The other two exchanged glances and then turned back to him. Bobby offered him a response.

‘Maybe something really important came up.’ He said shrugging, then went back to his food.

Kitty also avoided the question and suddenly seemed really interested in her food. Peter thought about challenging them about it but then reasoned that he didn’t really know them that well and if they didn’t want to tell him something they probably wouldn’t.

 

Peter knocked quietly at the open door, glancing around to see if anyone was there. When he didn’t see anyone, he went in and walked to the desk he had been sat at the day before, the remaining tests were all there, but he would have to wait so that he couldn’t be accused of cheating.

Peter turned around ready to start looking around then room when something moved in the corner of his eye. He turned around to look at it slowly and saw a blue man with runes carved into his skin and a spiked tail watching him intently.

Peter’s brain froze, trying to decide if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing or if it was just a trick of the light. He decided on the former when the person moved forwards and then just vanished, only to appear on top of another desk to Peter’s left. Peter turned so that he could track the man’s movements, but he didn’t make any moves towards him, not knowing if this was the Kurt that Dr McCoy had told him about or not.

The man vanished and appeared a few more times before settling on the desk that Dr McCoy had been working on the day before. ‘You’re Peter.’ The man said, with it coming out as more of a statement than a question.

Peter nodded mutely, still trying to decide what to say when the man’s face broke out into a grin.

‘I am Kurt’ the man announced with a slight accent.

Peter nodded to show he had heard and then spoke, ‘are you here to make sure I don’t cheat?’ he asked.

Kurt frowned, not liking that the boy had instantly assumed that he wasn’t trusted to take the test and not look up answers online on his own. ‘Well yes’ he admitted ‘but mainly so that I can give the tests to the right people so that you can get your scores back as quickly as possible and join in on your classes.’

Peter nodded but doubted what the man said, at his old school if anyone opened a test before the teacher got there they would have to be given a different test to make sure they didn’t cheat, and he didn’t believe that it was instantly accepted that he wouldn’t try to cheat in some way, he hadn’t proved himself to be trustworthy yet.

‘Can I start now?’ He asked instead. At Kurt’s nod he sat down and picked up the first exam in the pile, Physics.

 

Kurt watched as the boy sped through his exams one after another, getting more and more excited the closer he got to the end of the pile. He understood why they were getting him to do the exams when they normally just went with the grade the student was in and then adjusted the classes if they needed to, this boy seemed like he needed some stability and moving his classes around would only leave him feeling isolated as his classmates would constantly be changing. Well, Kurt acknowledged, that and the fact that the boy was very smart.

He watched as the boy finished his last exam and turned his gaze towards him.

‘Can I go and make my web fluid now?’ Peter asked, the excitement in his voice palpable.

‘I think it’s time for lunch’ Kurt stalled, knowing that it wasn’t likely that there would be anyone available to monitor him in a lab, not after what happened last night. ‘Why don’t you go and get some food and then I’ll come and tell you when you can go to the lab.’

Peter nodded looking slightly crestfallen, but still hopeful as he left the room to go get some food.

Kurt’s shoulders slumped once the boy was out of sight having found it difficult to keep his worry from showing. _Professor_ he reached out, and once he was sure he had the man’s attention he said _the boy has finished his exams and wants to know when he can go to the lab._

Kurt could feel the other man’s hesitation and added _I’ve sent him for lunch but I don’t know what you wanted me to say._

He heard a sigh from the other man and then _tell him that something has come up and we can’t let him make his web fluid right now, but as soon as someone if free he’ll be able to._

 _Alright_ Kurt agreed, _but you know he won’t like it._

 _I know the_ professor said, sounding resigned, _but I don’t have another option, what he would be doing in that lab needs monitoring and things are too busy right now to send someone who isn’t teaching to do it._

Kurt knew that the only reason the boy had been able to continue with his tests was that he wasn’t needed for what was happening and would most likely only get in the way, but he didn’t know enough to be able to monitor the boy in the lab _. I’ll tell him_ he said to the professor again and then the connection was cut.

 

 

Peter pushed his food around his plate in the nearly empty dining room, looking at the clock and realising that he had just missed the main lunch rush and the rest of the school would be preparing for their next lesson. Peter turned his head towards the doorway as he sensed a person hesitating there. Kurt. He looked nervous and Peter braced himself for the worst, that something had happened to Aunt May. But wait, he thought trying to keep his anxiety in check, if something had happened it wouldn’t have involved that argument in the morning and the professor seemed like the type of person who gave that news personally. He took a few breaths to calm himself down and tried not to think about it, waiting for Kurt to reach him.

He had an apologetic look when he reached Peter’s table, not the pitying one that people had when they were telling someone something happened to a loved one. This is good Peter thought, not Aunt May.

‘Peter I’m sorry’ Kurt began ‘but there isn’t anyone available who can take you to the lab so you can work on your project, so you’ll have to wait a while.’

Peter nodded, feeling a little down that he couldn’t work in a lab but mostly he just felt relief knowing it wasn’t something worse. ‘Okay’ Peter said, ‘do you know when someone will be free?’

Kurt started shaking his head slowly ‘no, I’m sorry Peter but it might be a couple of days.’ At Peter’s frown of concern he hastened to add ‘it’s nothing bad but something has come up so we’ll be busier for a few days and there are only a few people who have the right experience to monitor you in a lab.’

‘Okay’ Peter said, trying to fake a smile. He cleared his throat ‘do you know when I’ll be given my classes?’

Again Kurt shook his head apologetically, ‘I’m not sure but it should only be a few days. I know that a few of the exams you took yesterday have been marked but I don’t know how long the rest will take.’

Again Peter nodded, faking a smile. ‘Okay’ he said, ‘thanks for letting me know.’

Kurt opened his mouth to say something else but seemed to decide against it as he closed his mouth, nodded once at him and walked away.

Peter sat there staring at his food before getting up and throwing the rest of it away, deciding he didn’t want to eat anymore as he made his way back to his room, having nothing else to do but sit and wait for the other’s to finish class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment on what you think of the story so far!


	9. Running away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter overhears a conversation and runs away

Peter sat up and looked around, sure he heard something. There it was again. It sounded like an elevator, but he hadn’t seen one in the building, although it wasn’t impossible considering the professor was paralysed from the waist down. He sighed and climbed off his bed, going to search for the cause of the noise as he still didn’t have a phone or anything else to occupy himself in his room. He started walking towards the noise when he heard whispers.

“-should tell him-“

“-thinks we’re abandoning him-“

“-not important-“

“-just turn up like this-“

“-can’t trust-“

Then he heard the sound again and couldn’t hear any more talking. He crept into the hallway but he saw no one there and no sigh of an elevator. He frowned to himself but decided to dismiss it and headed towards the roof even though he had no web fluid, but he reasoned, they couldn’t blame him as they were the ones preventing him from making it.

He started to open the door to outside when he heard some familiar voices; Dr McCoy, Bobby and Kitty. Peter shook himself, it couldn’t be Dr McCoy, he said he was really busy and had no time today, he wouldn’t just be hanging out with some kids. He decided to find out what was going on, and if there was nothing then he could talk with Bobby and Kitty for a while, he didn’t want to admit it to himself but they were nice people and he liked them. When he got closer he could hear them clearly.

“-came in last night, but don’t tell anyone about it” Dr McCoy said, sounding tired.

“Of course” Kitty said, sounding unusually serious.

“But what about Peter?” Bobby asked, and Peter stilled listening carefully to the answer.

“He doesn’t need to know.” Came Dr McCoy’s shot reply. Peter felt his chest freeze, what were they keeping from him.

“But maybe he can help” Bobby tried again, “I mean he was Spiderm-“ the other two shushed him while Peter felt like the rug was pulled out from under him.

“Be quiet, you aren’t supposed to know that” Kitty hissed.

“Neither are you” Bobby shot back “you only know because you were listening when the professor talked to me about it.”

“Well it’s yo-“

Peter tuned them out and turned away, walking to his room quickly but quietly. It was obvious what had happened, the professor had asked Bobby to keep an eye on him, obviously not trusting Peter and had told Bobby about Spiderman. So much for it being his secret that he could tell people when he wanted. Why had he been so stupid? He berated himself as he grabbed some clothes and shoved them into his bag, not noticing what he was packing. He swung his backpack on and held onto it with a death grip as he would his way towards the front door, occasionally stopping to make sure no one stopped him.

When he reached the outside, he took a deep breath and thought. He needed a plan, he didn’t have one yet because he had been planning to stay for a week before he left, not a few days. He shook his head and quickly made his way to the wall surrounding the property, making sure not to be seen by anyone. He climbed over the wall and started making his way down the road that they had travelled to get there, remembering a small town they had passed on the way to the school.

As he walked, he planned. He knew that Aunt May’s was the first place they would look for him, but if he got her on his side then he wouldn’t have to go back. But is she still wanted him to go back he could leave before the X-men arrived, although he doubted it would come down to that. He looked around to make sure no one was watching him and then started to run down the road, using his speed to his advantage.

 

 

Charles shook his head in his office, finally alone after the long day he had had. He faced a difficult decision, whether to trust that they had really changed and allow them to stay here or to try to make them leave by force. Both decisions placed the students at risk, but maybe letting Peter see what happened to those who had been caught by people who wanted to experiment on mutates would make him see that they really wanted to help him.

BANG

His head jerked up as his office door smashed into the wall, revealing a panic-stricken Bobby with Kitty just behind him.

“What’s wrong?” He asked quickly, taking in their obvious worried expressions.

“It’s Peter” Bobby said, sounding breathless. “We can’t find him”

“We’ve looked everywhere” Kitty continued “his room, the kitchen, the dining room and even the roof. He’s nowhere.”

Suddenly a dark look came over Bobby’s face. “Do you think it was them?” he asked, referring to the people who had arrived earlier in the day.

“No” the professor replied having already considered this and dismissed it. “They know if they want to stay that they cannot harm any of my students, and that includes mutates.”

“What about the lab?” Kitty asked, “I know Dr McCoy is busy but maybe he got someone else to let him go there to work on his web fluid.”

Charles paused in looked directly at her. “How do you know about that?” He asked very seriously. “You know we take people’s privacy very seriously” he admonished.

Kitty dropped her gaze and replied softly “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was something important when I walked in, but when I realised it was, I left. Unfortunately,” Kitty admitted “by that point I had already heard that the new student was going to be Spiderman.”

Charles sighed and rubbed his forehead, knowing he was going to need to have another talk with her about not walking into rooms with closed doors, but before that he needed to find Peter.

“I’ll deal with this” He said, and when he noticed them starting to argue he said “it’s late now, so go to bed and I’ll tell you what happens in the morning.”

Kitty and Bobby reluctantly nodded and walked out of the room, hoping the professor could find Peter before anything happened to him.

When they left Charles closed his eyes and rubbed his temple, hoping, but not believing, that Peter was just in the lab unsupervised, as he knew no one was available to monitor him there. He reached out with his mind to search for the boy, but couldn’t find him. He started to worry that Peter had run away and contacted Hank to search for the boy with Logan.

 _Hank_ he said into the other man’s mind.

 _Yes Professor?_ Hank replied, sounding confused as he knew Charles had been headed off to bed as he had been woken up in the middle of the night.

 _I need you and Logan to search for Peter, I think he’s run away_ Charles said cutting to the chase and felt rather the heard Hank sigh.

 _Okay_ Hank replied, sounding even more tired than he had a minute ago. _Do you know how long ago he left?_

 _No_ Charles admitted, starting to worry that he had been missing most of the day when he felt Logan reach out to him.

 _He’s long gone Logan_ said as soon as Charles acknowledged that he was listening. _His scent is hours old and it looks like he’s headed to the train station. Three guesses as to where he’s going._

 _Queens_ Charles answered, regretting that he hadn’t taken more time to explain how dangerous it would be for him is he went back. _I’ll get someone else to deal with this he stated to the two of them. We can’t have either of you gone right now, there’s too much going on right now._

When the others had acknowledged this he reached out to one of his contacts in New York and explained the situation, then asked the person to go and retrieve the boy before he got himself or others into harms way. When the other person agreed he thanked them and headed off to bed, knowing he would need his strength for tomorrow, whether it was to deal with Peter or the people who arrived early that morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment and tell me what you think!


	10. In NY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter arrives in NY and makes his way to the flat

Peter stepped off the bus and heaved a sigh of relief, he was almost home, but as he looked at the dark sky, he realised that they must know he was missing by now. Maybe they wouldn’t care, maybe they wouldn’t come looking for him. It didn’t seem like they cared earlier, having lied to him that revealing his abilities would be up to him and no one would know until he told them, and the silent promise that no one, but those who had to, would know he was Spiderman.

Peter shook his head to clear his thoughts and started towards the closest ally. After checking that it was empty he climbed up the wall and started to make the journey home on the rooftops, reasoning that if they were using the CCTV cameras to look for him they couldn’t see him on the rooftops, so they couldn’t be sure where he was heading.

He reached the top of the building across from the apartment complex where Aunt May lives and took a moment to ready himself, knowing that if she said he had to go back he needed to be prepared to leave. He reached for the ledge of the roof and stilled, stopping just before his hand made contact. Something’s wrong he thought, spinning slowly to look around and peer into the darkness trying to make out any shapes that could possibly be setting off his senses.

Seeing nothing Peter shook his head, but stayed still, having never had a false alarm before. He focussed on listening and wondered if it wasn’t him who was in trouble but someone else. That was when he heard it, the sound of Aunt May talking with several people who sounded like they were pressing her for information.

“-don’t know what your talking about” he heard Aunt May say to the men.

“Of course, you don’t” one of the men said with obvious scorn, “why would you know anything about you nephew being an illegal genetic mutation. I mean it’s not like there would be obvious signs.”

Peter’s heart plummeted, dreading what was going to be said next.

“Look” Aunt May said, sounding exasperated “we’ve been over this several times. First you barge your way in here looking for my nephew without a warrant.”

“We don’t need one.” The first man snapped, “he’s an illegal genetic mutation and as such he is to be arrested for participating in unsanctioned human experimentation.”

“One” Aunt May began sounding angry, “he is not an illegal genetic mutation, he is a minor and this is against his human rights. And two, what do you mean unsanctioned human experimentation? All human experimentation is illegal in almost every part of the world, including America.”

“Look, just tell us where the boy is so we can leave.” An exasperated sounding man said, obviously trying to appeal to her irritation.

“I’ve told you” his aunt ground out “he left. He even left his phone behind, so why would he do that if he was still here?”

That’s why, he suddenly realised, that’s why I couldn’t find it. She took it when she hugged me, but how did she know this would happen. He was suddenly dragged out of his thoughts by the voice of the first man being raised in anger.

“-don’t tell us we will arrest you”

At this he saw red and jumped over the edge-

He jolted back, temporarily stunned at what had happened while his mind worked to keep up with what had happened. Peter moved to get up but couldn’t. something was holding him down. He took stock and realised that here was a hand over his mouth to keep him from making a sound and another arm braced around his stomach, gripping tightly to keep him from moving. He suddenly jerked his head wildly, not caring if he hurt the person behind him, only caring about his Aunt and the threatening people who were in their home.

Peter experienced a small victory by slipping his mouth out from under the person’s hand, but it was short lived as he was suddenly thrown to the side, the man on him before he could get to his feet to fight him off. He was pushed into the roof with his arm twisted behind his back before he realised what was happening. Peter tried to kick at the man, but he seemed to expect it and just wrenched Peter’s arm painfully until he let out a small gasp and stilled.

“Just stop mo-“ the words were cut off as Peter tried to head butt the man, but it only resulted in the man’s other hand in his head to keep his head still.

“Kid I swear” the man cut off swearing as Peter tried to roll away, wrenching the captured arm again and settling his weight on top of him. “Will you stop moving.” The man growled out.

“Let me go” Peter snapped, still struggling.

“So, he speaks” the man said in a gravelly voice.

“Let. Me. Go” he growled.

“No” the man said, settling the rest of his weight onto Peter’s back once he realised that he didn’t have the training to get out of the hold. “What’s going to happen here is you’re going to stop fighting me and come quietly without alerting the men in your Aunt’s apartment that you’re here.”

Peter froze, his mind working furiously to place the man, wondering how he knew him and how he knew that it was his Aunt’s apartment. He could only come up with one answer.

“The professor sent you.” Peter accused, relaxing to try to lull the man into a false sense of security.

“Yes” the man on top of him admitted, “but don’t you want to know why?”

“No. What I want you to do is to let me go?”

“Never going to happen” the man said sounding sure of himself, causing Peter to reassess the situation. If he was the only person sent after him then he must be strong enough to take him back by force, and there was no way he was being underestimated if the professor had told this man that he’s Spiderman.

“so” the man continued “are you going to come with me quietly or do I have to knock you out?”

“Why do you care?” Peter question, thinking that if he could find out the reason why he was here then he could reason with him.

“I owe the professor a favour, and I don’t like owing people favours” the gravelly voice answered, “and you’re too young to be experimented on.”

“Experimented on?” Peter muttered to himself, feeling like he had just walked into something bigger than he had expected. As if sensing this the man started to release him, then paused.

“If you try to run I will stop you” then he released the boy and moved so that he was between him and the apartment just in case, already listening to the boy’s heart so that he would know if he thought about making a run for it.

Peter moved quickly to put some distance between himself and his assailant, then turned to face him.

Huh.

Wasn’t expecting this he thought to himself and cursed himself for his stupidity in thinking that they would send someone after his instead of just contacting someone already in New York.

“Daredevil” Peter greeted.

The devil’s teeth glinted as the man gave him a smile in recognition, “Spiderman”

Peter sighed and his shoulders slumped, “I’m not getting past you, am I?”

“No” the man agreed with a small shake of his head.

“But” he tried to reason, “I need to save her! They were talking about arresting her!”

“They can’t” the man replied, and at Peter questioning sound he elaborated “they can’t arrest her for anything. All the evidence points to you running away, so even in an organisation like this one they won’t do anything to her because they have no cause. She planned it very well.”

Peter’s world tilted on its axis again. “Planned? She didn’t know anything until the X-Men told her. They ruined everything and then they lied saying that I would get to choose who I told about my abilities, but all they did was tell someone I was Spiderman and to keep an eye on me.”

Daredevil smirked and relaxed a bit. “I think you heard wrong; they don’t tell other people’s secrets. They’ve had too many people tell their own for them to be fine with telling other people’s. And yes, she only had a small amount of time to plan but she probably recognised the signs of the anti-mutate media frenzy that’s coming. Those men were looking for a scapegoat, and you’re young enough and inexperience enough that they could have used it to pass any bill that they wanted to get forced registration of mutates.”

Peter’s head began to spin as he realised what he had almost done. He had almost caused mutate registration! They could do anything with the knowledge of who mutates were and their abilities. It was starting to look like running away had been a big mistake and he should have listened when the professor told him about the experimentation being done to mutates.

Apparently daredevil seemed to recognise that all the fight had left him, and he gestured in the direction of Hell’s kitchen. “Come on” the man said, “they’re sending someone to pick you up, we’re meeting them soon.”

Peter nodded and followed the man across the city, his mind a whirlwind of what had almost happened, what he had almost caused to happen. He had messed up badly and now he wasn’t sure what he was meant to do. He decided he needed to speak to the professor and find out what was going on so that he didn’t mess up again. Maybe he could also ask about what he heard, as it seems like he misunderstood it.


	11. Back to school

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets picked up from NY by the X-men and taken back to school

“Why did they tell you?” Peter asked as they sat on the roof in Hell’s kitchen staring up at the sky.

“Tell me what?”

“Tell you who I am. They could have just told you I’m a mutant and I was in trouble.” Peter explained, turning his head to look at Daredevil.

The man smirked. “He didn’t.”

Peter squawked “He didn’t? Then how did you know?”

The man started to laugh a full bodies laugh. “He told me where you were going and that your Aunt knew about you but I thought it would be better to stop you so you wouldn’t have to face a family member who sent you to that school against your own will. Imagine my surprise when a little spider crawls up the side of a building near me and proceeds to leap across rooftops like it’s nothing.”

Peter blushed slightly looking down. “Guess I gave myself away.”

“Well that and that Spiderman has been missing for a while.” Peter turned towards Daredevil, about to ask him how he knew when the man continued “there were some people going around talking about moving their operation here now that Spiderman is gone.”

Peter felt the indignation rise up “this is why I can’t stop. As soon as I take a break they all come out of the woodwork,” he was about to go on but then he remembered his resolution to talk to the Professor about what he had heard. “Well, it’s why I couldn’t stop before.” He said in a softer voice, almost whispering to himself.

He saw Daredevil nodding out of the corner of his eye. “I understand, but you need to know when continuing will do more harm than good.” He turned to look directly at Peter. “There is more at stake than just Queens now, if they find you and find out you’re Spiderman they could make all the shady things they’re doing legal.”

Peter nodded his head. “I know.”

Daredevil paused to listen to the boy’s heartbeat to make sure he understood and breathed a sigh of relief. He was finally getting it. Before he could open his mouth to say anything more, he heard the humm of an almost silent engine and turned in the direction it came from.

“Looks like your ride is here.”

Peter made a confused sound, then one of understanding when he heard the sound of the engine. Wait. If he could only just hear the sound of the engine how did Daredevil hear it? Never mind he thought as the plane stopped just by them, he would think about it another day.

The ramp of the plane opened to reveal Storm and Peter breathed a sigh of relief, he didn’t want to be around Wolverine or Dr McCoy right now. He didn’t want to talk on the ride back and he would have to if it was the other two as they knew him more than the other.

“Thanks” Peter said turning his head towards Daredevil, who cocked his head in confusion. “For stopping me from doing something stupid.” He clarified.

The man nodded and looked past him to Storm, nodded after a while, almost like some kind of communication had passed between them before he ran to the edge of the building and dropped out of sight.

When he turned back towards Storm she nodded towards the plane and he walked forwards, this time choosing to go to the school. It felt like he was deciding his own path, and he was going to get the information to understand the game that was going on around him that he was an important pawn in.

 

 

Peter stared towards the ramp waiting for it to open, for them to arrive so that he could talk to the Professor. His mind churning with all that he had learned on his attempted escape from, it appeared, safely.

“They weren’t ignoring you” Storm said, and Peter turned to look at her in the pilot’s seat.

“What?” he asked, unsure he had heard her right.

“Earlier, when Hank promised you time in his lab, he didn’t say he was too busy because he didn’t want to be around you, he said it because some dangerous people had arrived and he needed to be there to help in case they decided to hurt anyone.” Storm said, her voice full of sincerity.

Peter nodded but didn’t respond, adding this to the list of things he needed to ask about. He knew something had happened from the conversations he had overheard earlier but he hadn’t really thought about it. It had been nice, he realised, to not need to worry over every little thing that could possibly go wrong. If he had heard what he had at the school in Queens he would have been following the people to make sure no one was hurt, but it hadn’t even occurred to him that he needed to help. It was almost like he knew that everything would be sorted out without him needing to interfere so he could deal with his own problems.

Well, that or he was preoccupied by learning that both Kitty and Bobby knew his identity and apparently Dr McCoy knew about it. He knew that if he was going to trust them again then they needed to tell him who knew about his identity and the real situation involving mutates.

Peter was pulled out of his thoughts by the plane starting its descent and he looked up to see they were right in front of the school, the plane gradually lowering itself like a helicopter. He waited for the plane to touch down and waited. Then he saw the ground at his eyelevel as they descended into what looked like a hidden hanger bay.

At Peter’s confused look Storm smiled and stood, walking towards the opening ramp. She paused to allow him to catch up with her and said, “This is where the X-men train and leave on missions from.”

Peter nodded and followed her as she crossed to a set of doors and then walked down a hallway. She led him past several rooms that looked like labs and one that looked like a medical bay, then they stopped at another door which opened to reveal an elevator.

Peter turned to look at her and said, “When can I see the Professor?”

“Not now.” She replied, and at his look of frustration she said “It’s 3 am and most of the students and staff are asleep, including the Professor. But I know he wants to talk to you as well so I think that after you’ve eaten breakfast you can go to see him.”

Peter nodded in understanding, although he was a bit miffed that the Professor wasn’t awake when he needed to talk to him. He stepped into the elevator and thought more about it on the way up. When it opened, it revealed the corridor he had heard people talking in earlier. Huh, he thought, so they were going down there to deal with X-men things when I heard them.

Peter walked towards his room and he wanted to knock on the Professor’s office just in case to see if he was up but then he stopped himself. He was the one who had run away, and it seemed like there was something serious going on that was more important than Peter waking him up for a chat. It could wait until tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism please


	12. Returning and mending fences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is picked up and heads back to the school

Peter crept up the stairs, not wanting to wake anyone up when there was school tomorrow. As he turned down the corridor to the kitchen, he debated whether to stay awake and sleep after his conversation with the Professor or to sleep now and be more awake and aware for the conversations but have it a bit later. He couldn’t decide and he also needed to find out how Kitty and Bobby knew he was Spiderman. He had assumed that they had known all along but after talking to Daredevil he realised that he was assuming too much, and he needs to have a conversation with them and then decide if he can still trust them.

As he passed the kitchen he saw that the saw that the light was on but decided not to go in. He didn’t want to try and make small talk with people he had only seen in passing after today.

“Peter”

He turned around and saw the tear stained faces of Bobby and Kitty standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

Kitty ran up to him and threw her arms around him in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re safe” she sighed, then she pulled away and smacked him on the arm. “That’s for worrying us.” She said at Peter’s offended squawk.

Peter levelled her with an unimpressed stare before he turned his gaze to Bobby.

“I’m sorry” Bobby said with sincerity, looking Peter in his eyes. Peter nodded as him as Kitty looked between the two confused. “Can we talk?” Bobby asked, sounding hopeful but looking prepared to be turned down.

Peter nodded and followed Bobby into the kitchen with Kitty trailing behind them still looking confused. They settled onto the sofas in front of the TV with Peter on one and Kitty and Bobby on the other. Kitty had tried to join Peter on the sofa to reassure herself that he was safe, but she was stopped at Bobby’s head shake.

“So” Peter began. “You know I’m Spiderman.”

Kitty drew in a breath at this, suddenly understanding Bobby’s reason for apologising earlier. Bobby nodded his head with a sad expression on his face.

“Yes” he admitted solemnly.

“When?” Peter asked, “when did you know? And how?”

Bobby sighed and began talking. “I suspected after you were on the roof, I mean who can climb onto a roof and not get dragged down by a teacher for being so irresponsible.” Bobby grimaced apologetically towards Peter. “I had also heard that Spiderman hadn’t been seen for a while so I started to think it might be you. Of course, I thought I was wrong when I heard that Spiderman hadn’t been seen for about a week before you arrived, but then there was all the food you ate and the fact that the Professor personally went to bring you here. He doesn’t usually go to bring students here anymore; he usually leaves it up to Jean. But I was still unsure, and then last night some things happened and some people came here to get the Professor’s help and since I’m training to be one of the X-men I noticed what was going on and went to see if I could help. When I got there, I heard Scott and Hank talking, Scott said that he thought it was too dangerous to have them here and that they needed to go somewhere else because Spiderman had just arrived. I stopped to listen but Logan saw me and told me to go back upstairs so they stopped talking.”

Bobby stopped to gauge Peter’s reaction and upon seeing that he was still listening he continued. “I put together that they were talking about you, I mean you’re the newest person to the school and to get onto the roof you would need to be able to do something like climbing the side of a building. I was walking to my room and I was thinking about how I could talk to you about it but I then I saw the Professor and I decided to ask him about it. When he realised that I knew we went to talk in his office and he basically told me that I needed to tell you that I knew about Spiderman and I was going to ask him why you came here when you can obviously control your abilities when I saw Kitty standing hallway through the wall. I didn’t know how much she had heard so I went to go find her but the next time I saw her was with you at breakfast and it wasn’t the right time to have that conversation, with either of you.”

Peter took a deep breath and sighed, still processing what Bobby had said while he closed his eyes and rubbed them. On the one hand he was glad that no one had told Bobby that he was Spiderman, but on the other had if Bobby could figure it out then so could everyone else, and if it got out that he was here then everyone would be in danger. He needed to have that conversation with Professor Xavier as well, so he would know what to do if that happened.

Peter opened his eyes and looked at Bobby, who sat there waiting to see if Peter believed him. “Thank you” Peter said, “for telling me what happened.” At Bobby’s nod he turned to look at Kitty who looked more serious than he had ever seen her. “How did you find out?”

“When I walked through the wall into the Professor’s office” Kitty admitted, “usually I would have knocked but I had realised that there was something going on as well and I wanted to know what it was, so I stopped by the office on the way down to see if he was in there or not.” Kitty took a breath and seemed to steel herself for what she was about to say. “I heard Bobby asking who knew you were Spiderman and when I left, I went to your room to talk to you about it.”

“And then you found me on the ceiling.” Peter concluded.

Kitty gave an apologetic grimace, “I know I should have knocked but I thought that if you were still asleep then I could just find a time to talk to you during the day, but when it turned out you were awake I thought it would be better to talk in the kitchen so that you could leave if you wanted to.”

They lapsed into silence waiting for Peter to process what they had just told him.

“What was going on?” Peter finally asked, “what happened that you both rushed down in the middle of the night and listened into conversations to find out?” They both winced at the accusation but had to admit that he was right, they had both invaded other people’s privacy and it had resulted in finding out his biggest secret.

“Before you came, we had a friend called John, he ran away a few months ago and we were hoping that they had found him.” Bobby answered smiling sadly.

Peter was stunned at the revelation and wondered aloud “why did he leave?”

Bobby and Kitty exchanged an uncomfortable glance and Kitty answered, “he thought that the Professor could be doing more to help mutants than he was, and he thought that the way he was doing it was wrong.”

“So he decided to leave and join Magneto” Bobby continued looking slightly chagrined. “We were hoping he had come back because when we saw Magneto on our last mission John wasn’t there and Scott told him he shouldn’t have let John stay with him he didn’t know what we were talking about. Magneto told us John never mad it to him.”

“We’ve been trying to find him ever since.” Kitty finished with a sad look in her eyes.

Shit Peter thought, I wasn’t expecting that.

“Did they find him?” Peter asked, thinking that that could be the reason that the X-men had all been so busy.

“Yeah” Bobby answered with a slight smile on his face, “but we weren’t allowed to talk to him”. At Peter’s confused look he explained “they don’t know what happened to him so until they know that he’s in control no one apart from the teachers are allowed near him.”

Peter nodded in understanding. If they didn’t know what had happened to him then they didn’t know what mental state, he was going to wake up in and he could be a danger to others.

“I hope you get to see him soon.” Peter said, and the other two smiled at him nodding.

Peter opened his mouth to say something but then he started to yawn, which set the other two off as well.

“Well, now that we know you’re okay I think we should go to bed” Bobby said while getting to his feet. The other two nodded in agreement and they all went their rooms after saying goodnight.

Once he was in his room Peter flopped onto his bed, not bothering to change out his clothes and he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

 

 

BEEP. BEEP. BEE-

The noise cut off as Peter wacked at it and he lifted his head blearily to see the remains of the alarm clock on the floor. Oh well Peter thought sleepily closing his eyes again. Wait he thought, there was something important he needs to do today, what was i-

He bolted upright as he remembered the conversations he had last night, and the one he needs to have with the Professor today. Peter clambered out of bed and stumbled around his room to change into some new clothes when he remembered that he didn’t have a shower last night. He sniffed himself and pulled his head back wrinkling his nose, he needed a shower.

 

Peter walked into the dining room feeling more awake after the shower and make a bee line for the food, shilling two plates as high as he could before looking around to find somewhere to sit. Once he spotted Kitty and Bobby sitting on a table he went to join them before digging in.

After ploughing his way though half a plate he noticed that the other two weren’t talking and looked up to seem them staring at him wide eyed.

“Uh, you, um, where?” Bobby asked, looking very confused, his eyes flicking from Peter to his food and back again.

“Huh?” Peter asked while still shovelling food.

Bobby just blinked at him a few times, shook his head and went back to his food. Peter shrugged and looked over at Kitty to see if she knew what that was about. She stared at his food with wide, confused eyes.

Oh, the food.

“I didn’t eat supper last night” he explained.

“That still doesn’t explain That” Kitty replied gesturing towards his mountain of food.

Peter looked down at his plate and back at her again, confusion stamped on his face. “Yes it does” he replied.

“If you say so” Bobby sighed.

They lapsed into silence once again as they continued to devour their food and only looked up again when they heard someone clearing their throat.

“Peter” Dr McCoy said, looking apologetically at the boy. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go to the lab with you yesterday, but I’ll be free after 11 if you want to go then.” The small but genuine smile on Peter’s face encouraged Dr McCoy and he continued. “I’ll meet you here and take you to the lab.” Peter nodded and watched as Dr McCoy left.

“Things must be calming down if he’s free now” Bobby commented.

That, Peter thought to himself, or he felt guilty about not going to the lab with me yesterday before I ran away.

Peter blinked and tried to focus on what Kitty was saying.


	13. Making webs and new encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter finally makes his web fluid but a situation leads to him to a surprise encounter

 

Peter sat in the kitchen counting down the minutes until he could meet Cr McCoy, excited to finally be making some more web fluid. Although, he was disappointed that he couldn’t talk to the Professor earlier. When he had gone to knock on the Professor’s office door he was told that the man had already gone down to the X-men level to help deal with the situation that had begun a few nights ago by Storm, who had predicted that Peter would go there as soon as he could. Peter hadn’t pressed to talk to him because he knew that the Professor was probably needed to help the student they had found, so he could wait a little longer. He also knew that he could ask Dr McCoy some of his questions when they were in the lab together later in the day and that he was more likely to let something slip that he wasn’t supposed to.

Peter shot up as the clock changed to 10:58 and went down to the dining room, trying not to make it obvious that he was rushing. When he finally crossed the threshold into the room, he saw the familiar blue of Dr McCoy’s fur at one of the tables, and he started towards him.

Dr McCoy’s head rose as he heard Peter’s approach and he put his pen down, packing away the paper that he was grading, having just finished counting up the marks. He picked up the pile of exams and stood up to greet him. “Peter” he said nodding his head in acknowledgement.

Peter nodded his head back and tried to keep himself from vibrating in excitement at the thought of being able to swing again.

Dr McCoy supressed a chuckle at the visibly vibrating child in front of him and gestured for Peter to follow him with a nod towards the door.

They walked towards the corridor where the elevator entrance was in silence, only broken by the sounds of the classrooms around them. They stopped in front of the elevator and the door opened almost silently as Dr McCoy gestured for him to go in first. As they went down Peter looked at the paper the man held under his arm and saw him name on them.

“Are those my tests?” Peter asked, still curious about how he had done.

Dr McCoy nodded at Peter and replied, “I’ve almost finished marking the science ones so I can tell you those scored once you’ve finished making you web fluid.” The door opened and the pair stepped out, walking left towards the lab area of the floor. “Scott is marking your other papers so I don’t know when you’ll get those marks back, but it should be soon.”

Peter nodded and wondered why the teachers for each subject weren’t marking them, it would make it a lot quicker, but then it might have something to do with the boy Bobby and Kitty had told him about.

“This is it” Dr McCoy said as he opened one of the doors on the left for Peter to walk through.

Wow Peter thought as he looked around the lab, excited that they trusted him enough to let him in this space even if it is supervised.

Dr McCoy cleared his throat and Peter turned to look at him, temporarily stopping his ogling. “Which chemicals do you need? I’ll get them out for you.”

Peter told him and then set about making the fluid in well-practiced motions, not noticing the other man’s shock that a child could look so at home in the lab.

Dr McCoy retreated to the side of the room to finish grading the papers, periodically looking up to check that Peter was alright.  This continued for almost an hour before the both froze, having heard the sounds of a fight.

Dr McCoy stood and waked towards the door, sticking his head out to look around. “Stay here” he said looking back at Peter and waiting for a nod. Once he received it he slipped out of the room and started down the hall to the other side of the floor.

 

Hank hurried to open the door that held their new guests, worried about what could have happened, but what he saw shocked him. John and Ororo were on the floor by the wall, having been knocked out by something. As he was checking on them, he tried to get Charles’ attention.

 _Charles,_ he called out until he received an answer.

 _Yes?_ Came the tired answer.

 _The girl’s gone_ he said succinctly, _and John and Ororo were knocked out_.

 _Find her but don’t approach her before I get there_ came the reply and then the link was cut off.

Hank stood after making sure that the two were alright, then whirled as the door came crashing open. There stood Logan and Scott, slightly out of breath.

“What happened?” Logan demanded in a growl, taking in the room in one sweep.

“I’m not sure” Hank replied, “but the girl is gone.”

“You think she did this?” Scott asked seriously, knowing that they didn’t really know what she could do. She had been unconscious when she was brought here and all they knew about her was what John could tell them, which wasn’t much.

“We need to find her” Logan stated turning away to stalk out of the door, but he paused to listen to Hank as he called out to him.

“Logan. Charles said to find her but to wait until he gets here to approach her.” Logan nodded to show he had heard and then he set off, trying to follow her scent.

“Over here!” he called to the others when he had found it. He pointed to one of the rooms near by and said “she hid in here before she went that way.” He gestured towards the direction of the elevator and was about to head that way when he saw Hank pale. “What?” he demanded looking at the man with concern.

Scott noticed this and turned to look at Hank as well, “what’s wrong?” he asked seriously, worried that Charles was telling him about something else that had happened.

“Peter” Hank managed to finally say at he started towards the lab that he had left the boy alone in. “Peter is in the lab.”

The other two exchanged glance and then ran after him, worried that something had happened to the latest addition to the school.

 

 

Peter sat twirling around in the swivel chair waiting for Dr McCoy to return, trying to listen to what was happening, but he hadn’t heard anything since the initial scuffle. He sighed and went back to refilling his web shooters having finished making his first batch of web fluid.

There he thought clipping the capsules onto the shooters on his wrist, now he could climb onto the roof again, and if he found a big enough space he could swing around.

He heard the door open and he swivelled around to face the door.

“Hey Dr McCoy, what ha-“ Peter blinked at the person.

“you’re not Dr McCoy.” He said to the girl who stood there looking at him with wide eyes. “Who are you?” he asked standing, and he started to walk toward her but stopped when she slid into a defensive position.

He put his hands up and noticed for the first time that she wasn’t wearing any shoes. “Are you okay?” he asked taking a small step towards her.

“Stay away!” She cried holding out her hands.

Her hands that had fire surrounding them.

“Okay” Peter said taking a step back, trying to sound reassuring even though he was panicking inside. Where was Dr McCoy?

“Can I get you anyone?” He asked trying to be as non-threatening as possible.

The girl shook her head with a wild look in her eyes.

“Okay” Peter soothed with his hands still up. Then he heard it.

“-the girl’s gone”

“you think she did this?”

“We need to find her.”

Peter tried to listen to more but then the girl cried “Who are you listening to?”

“No one” Peter tried to reassure her, but it didn’t work and the fire from her hands gradually wrapped around her like a whirlwind until it exploded outwards, sending Peter flying to the wall behind him.

Peter groaned and lifted his head blinding. “Ouch” he said looking around. The girl was still there but huddled in the far corned of the room. He rubbed his head and then used the wall to get to his feet.

He looked over at the girl and saw that she was staring at her hands like she was horrified. “Why. Why. Why” she muttered to herself, but she shot to her feet when she saw the boy standing up and staring at her.

“Where are we?” She asked him, sounding calmer than before.

“Xavier’s school for the gifted.” Peter answered as calmly as possible.

“A school?” She questioned. “Not a lab?”

“A school” Peter clarified.

“How did I get here?” she asked staring at him.

“I’m not sure” Peter replied, “but I assume it was the X-men you brought you here.”

“The X-men? I thought they only helped mutants”

“you’re not a mutant?” he questioned, but as here expression shut down he shook his head. “Sorry I just assumed, but I’m not a mutant either. I’m a mutate.”

“A mutate?” She asked sounding like she had never heard the word before.

Peter opened his mouth to respond when the door was thrown open and Dr McCoy, Wolverine and Cyclops hurtled into the room. Then they froze, staring in astonishment at the boy and girl in front of them. The room looked like they had fought but there they were standing near each other without any hostility.

The girl overcame her confusion first and fire seeped out of her hands. “Who are you?” she asked aggressively.

Wolverine started forwards but stopped when Peter put out his hand towards him and moved so that he was between the two.

“Wait” he said sounding panicked. “These are the X-men” he said to the girl slowly, to make sure she understood what he was saying.

“Are you sure?” She asked, her eyes flitting between the three newcomers nervously.

“Yes” Peter said, sounding calmer now that she was listening to him.

“And they’re safe?” She asked, still not taking her eyes away from the possible threat.

“Yes” Peter said, his voice resolute.

The girl turned her gaze towards him again to gauge if he was lying or not, and upon seeing that he was telling the truth let herself relax.

The three newcomers relaxed as the fire surrounding her hands disappeared and she sagged against the wall.

It was then that the door opened again, and the Professor entered along with another man wearing a helmet. Magneto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism and kudos please!


	14. first words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The initial encounter between the two groups

Peter and the girl tensed, the fire re-emerging from her hands as he instinctively sunk into a defensive position, shifting slightly so he was partially shielding her.

“What’s going on here?” the Professor asked, his gaze sweeping the room as he wheeled in with Magneto following behind.

“Nothing that we couldn’t handle” Cyclops said with a strained smile on his face, while walking in between the two children and the newest threat, the man that they were contemplating working with.

Watching this Magneto sighed, “must we do this?” he asked in an exasperated voice when Cyclops came to a stop with his body partially obstructing the children in the room. “I’m not going to hurt them.”

Wolverine made a snort of derision from his position to the left of the Professor and Magneto, far enough away to not seem threatening but close enough that he could distract Magneto enough for the children to get away if needed.

Upon seeing this the Professor reached out his mind to the three teachers in an effort to diffuse the situation, _Erik is here to help, and he has promised me he won’t harm the children_.

Wolverines eyes narrowed slightly as this, but he did start to lean against the desk nearest to him to give the illusion that he relaxed.

While this exchange was going on Peter and the girl were becoming more and more agitated, with Peter’s gaze bouncing from Cyclops to Wolverine and then finally resting on the Professor and Magneto. He had heard of Magneto before, but it was always just rumours never anything concrete. People used him as a bogeyman these days as he hadn’t been seen in so long but there was no mistaking the helmet he was wearing.

As if sensing Peter’s gaze Magneto switched his own from his attention on Cyclops to Peter and he narrowed his eyes, as if he was assessing him. Erik knew that Charles didn’t allow any of the X-men to start training to a member until they were at least sixteen years old, but this boy looked younger than that. There was also the fact that he was trusted to be alone in a lab with dangerous chemicals. Erik dismissed this for later and turned his attention onto the girl who was at the back of the room with fire surrounding her. She looked like she was panicking, but she allowed the boy to try to protect her, then he noticed more fire forming, starting to circle her. Not trained then he concluded and turned his gaze back to Charles to wait to see what he would do and to hopefully prevent the girl from accidentally losing control.

The Professor cleared his throat and all eyes turned towards him. “As you all know this is Erik, or more commonly known as Magneto.” He the paused to gauge the reactions of Peter and the girl, they still looked uneasy. He then spoke to the girl directly as he started to make his way towards her “Erik is the one who found you and brought you here” he explained as he came to a stop inline with Peter so that the boy didn’t feel that he needed to protect her. He then turned his gaze toward Peter. “And he is the reason that we have all been so busy.”

Peter nodded his head at this as things started to come together in his head, Dr McCoy not being able to supervise him in the lab or with tests, the tests not being marked as soon as they said they would be and the snippets of conversations he had overheard. Then his eyes flickered back to Magneto, unsure if he could trust the man even with the presence of the Professor and the other three in the room.

Peter hear the Professor’s voice in his mind, _I’m just going to talk to her and make sure she’s okay_. He nodded slightly and stepped out of his defensive position to show the girl behind him that the Professor wasn’t a threat.

Then he turned to look at her. And froze.

There was so much fire surrounding her, it was weaving around her like a living, breathing being that was displeased that its host was threatened. The amount of fire was just less that when he had been thrown across the room.

Dr McCoy noticed the change in Peter and reached out to the Professor mind by repeating _Charles_ as loudly as he could until he heard the reply that meant the man was listening.

 _I think something happened before we came in_ , he explained whilst looking around the room. As the looked he noticed that the station Peter had been working at was in disarray and that some of the beakers where smashed on the floor. _I think she can create something similar to a shock wave is she is worked up enough_ he concluded as he explained what he had see in the room and the medical room where the girl had been previously.

The Professor acknowledged this and then cut the connection so that he could focus on the girl in front of him.

“What’s your name?” he asked her, trying to start with a simple question to get he to calm down. However, it seemed to have the opposite effect to what he had intended when the flames began to move faster around her, and her mind became more turbulent. After Hank’s warning he knew he couldn’t let her get much more agitated, so he reached out to communicate with her mind.

 _Hello,_ he said, _my name is Charles Xavier and I am the leader of the X-men_.

He felt her shock as he spoke into her mind, but then he saw the memories from her childhood that showed snippets of the X-men and watched as she remembered that the leader was a telepath. Charles internally breathed a sigh of relief as the flames slowed down and they slightly dissipated.

She met his eyes and he realised that although she had been through a lot she wasn’t broken, she still had an internal fire that as she challenged him. He smiled to himself, maybe this wasn’t going to go as badly as he thought.

Then Erik opened him mouth.

“Are we just going to stand here or are we going to do something?” Followed by a Thwip.

Charles turned quickly and was dumbfounded at the scene before him. Hank, Logan and Scott stood with mouths open as they stared at Erik who had his mouth held shut by what looked like spiders web. Supressing a smile he turned to look at Peter, who stood there in shock at what he had done, frozen with a look of disbelief on his face, his arm still held out in the position of when he shot the web at the man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long I was busy revising for exams.
> 
>  
> 
> Please comment what you think of it so far!


	15. Outcomes and Realisations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magneto's reaction to being webbed in the face and the name of the mystery girl

Peter stood frozen in shock, his wide-eyed gaze on the webbing he had just shot over Magneto’s mouth.

Peter opened his mouth and started to stammer “I-I, uh, um” he started not knowing what to say.

He was saved from having to continue by Wolverine’s laughter which started out in a quiet chuckle and became a full-fledged roar as he used his hands to brace himself on his knees in an effort to keep standing. Peter looked around the room to gauge the others reactions and saw Cyclops trying to supress a smile and Dr McCoy using his hand to hide his. He turned to look behind him and saw the Professor’s smile slowly growing as mirth covered his face.

His focus was then drawn to the back of the room as he heard a quiet, but still there, little chuckle. He watched as the girl seemed to relax and used the wall to support her as the flames around her completely dissipated. She met his eyes and offered a small smile in thanks and Peter gave a nod in return. Although the adults in the room hadn’t realised this situation had just solidified her trust in him as he had now protected her twice and acted instinctively to stop her being insulted.

They were brought back to the room by the Professor’s voice.

“Peter please could you remove the web from Erik’s mouth?” he asked with a hint of mirth in his voice.

“Y-yeah” Peter stuttered as he quickly jogged to his ruined workstation and picked up a container of undamaged web removed. He then approached Magneto but stopped around a foot away.

Peter lifter the container and spoke “I can use this to remove it, or you can wait two hours for it to dissolve. But” he continued “I’ve never used it on someone’s face so if it hurts you need stop me.”

He waited for the man’s nod of understanding before he carefully removed the web and once he had finished he quickly retreated, still weary of him even though he had arrived with the Professor.

 

Erik rubbed at him mouth once the webbing had been removed, his mind churning with what he had just learned. This child is Spider-man, the person who swing between skyscrapers in New York and fought crime on a daily basis. Rage started to fill him as he realised that someone had to have known this boy was doing this as he would have come home covered in bruises at all times of the night. How could someone be so neglectful? He thought to himself. This is why he didn’t trust humans. They didn’t care for each other and they would gladly deliberately harm each other if it put themselves ahead of their competitors.

He caught Charles’ eye and to convey that they needed to talk later and the other man nodded. At least Charles had done something about it he thought as he looked around the room to see that the other three men were not surprised that this boy was Spider-man.

 

“Well, now that that’s out of the way” the Professor said turning once again to look at the girl behind him, “could you please tell us your name?”

The girl in question straightened from where she had been relaxing on the wall and gazed at him in challenge once more. “Flame” she bit out, almost daring him to question it.

Instead of asking for her real name though he just nodded and replied, “it’s a pleasure to meet you Flame.”

Outwardly Flame stayed the same but inside she was a whirlwind of emotions; fear that he was trying to lull her into a false sense of security, shock that he had accepted her name and a tiny spark of hope that his place would be better than the last. Better than the place she was taken and experimented on.

“Well” the Professor announced turning his chair so that he could address the room “why don’t we continue this conversation later after we’ve all had lunch?”

As if on que Peter stomach rumbled and his face flushed as he glanced at the Professor and offered an apologetic smile.

Wolverine stepped forward and put his arm on Peter’s shoulder to direct him out of the room, “c’mon” he said, “let’s go get some lunch.”

Peter paused to look back at Flame, his eyes asking if she was okay with him leaving her with them. Once he had a small smile and nod in reply from her and a nod of encouragement from the Professor, he allowed himself to be steered out of the room and into the elevator.

“Why is he here?” Peter asked as they stepped into the hallway.

Wolverine looked at him and sighed, “you’ll have to ask the Professor for the whole story but they showed up a few nights ago with that girl, Flame, and said they had found her at a facility with a mutant they were looking for.”

Peter’s stomach sunk with realisation. “That could have been me” he muttered to himself, momentarily forgetting Wolverine’s heightened senses.

“Yes” he replied grimly stopping to look Peter in the face to ensure the boy understood the situation that had developed. “You were told that people were looking to experiment on mutates, or as they refer to you, illegal genetic experiments. What you weren’t told is they are making some of them and they are trying to get their experiments to mimic the natural abilities mutants have.”

Realisation struck Peter’s mind “they could accuse you of doing it to people or they could claim that the mutates they created are actually mutant and then use them as a reason to create laws against mutants.”

Wolverine nodded at him, “or they could say that mutates were out of control and they needed to be housed in government facilities to learn to control their abilities before they killed people. That would get the public on their side and then the government could train them to be soldiers.”

Peter’s head dipped as eh felt his heart ache for the people who had been targeted because of accidents that they had no control over or those who had been experimented on just to give those in power an excuse to control more people. It was wrong and he wanted to do something about it but he also knew that because of Jameson his reputation was that of a masked menace and so he would be an ideal target. As someone who was legally a child who had obviously been enhance through some kind of experiment who went out almost every night and as Jameson said caused damage to the city. The people they were up against would use all of that and then say they were protecting him by taking him away from his Aunt as she hadn’t realised what he was doing.

He had almost messed everything up by trying to go home, and he would have caused a much bigger problem by trying to fight the people who had threatened Aunt May if Daredevil hadn’t stopped him.

 

Logan watched as the emotions travelled across the boy’s face as he finally started to understand just how big the problem was and that if he tried doing what he had planned on doing before he would cause a lot of problems for a lot of innocent people. People like the girl downstairs who had been given John’s abilities and had almost no control over them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism and kudos please!!!


	16. A needed conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Charles Xavier finally talk about all that's been bothering Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give constructive criticism and kudos!!!
> 
> just did some spelling and grammar corrections

Peter was still slightly reeling as they entered the dining room. With a start he realised that he had been downstairs longer than he had thought as there were only a handful of students in the room and most of the food was gone.

“When do you think it would be a good idea to go and talk to the Professor?” he asked once they were seated at one of the tables and they had begun to eat.

Wolverine paused for a moment, as if to consider his reply, then answered “he should be done with everything by around 5 O’clock. That would probably be the best time to get your answers.”

He nodded and then went back to eating, trying to come up with a list of things that he needed to discuss with the Professor.

 

 

Peter avoided people for the rest of the day by resting in the centre of the roof, having learnt from the last incident that it wasn’t wise to sit on the edge as people would think he needed help. Although this time he had mentioned it to Wolverine before he had left lunch.

As he rested, he realised how freeing it was to up there with no one crying for help, no responsibilities weighing on him every time he had to stop for a break, even though he knew if it was something serious enough the fantastic four would get involved. He thought back to his few interactions with them in the city when they had first emerged.

He had been Spiderman for almost a year when suddenly there were four more people trying, emphasis on trying, to protect his city. At first he had been annoyed by them as they made several mistakes and the only reason civilians hadn’t been hurt was because he had interfered, but as he watched them he realised that they were new to their abilities and they were learning as they went.

Because of that he decided that every time they got into a fight he would be nearby, but he never interceded unless he could help it. At first the Four had been annoyed but then they realised that he wasn’t interceding at all in their last battle. That had led to a final confrontation between him and Reed once the scientist realised why he acting as he did.

Reed was irritated at someone who didn’t have a great record trying to baby them, and to be fair he would or felt the same, but Peter refused to let anyone get hurt when they didn’t have to and if he had to step in then so be it.

Peter scoffed to himself, who was he kidding, he just didn’t want them to have to live with the regret that he did. The pain that came with the failure to help the people screaming his name. That’s why he had accepted Mr Stark’s help. He had thought it could help him become a better superhero, a more reliable one, one that people not only hoped could save them but one that they knew would save them.

Well, he acknowledged, that and the fact that he couldn’t help feeling like he had fallen behind the Four. They were taking on bigger battles each time and he had to stick to some of the smaller ones because he couldn’t be in multiple placed at once. But despite all of that he still felt a sense of pride when he successfully helps people, be that a bank robbery or an old lady across the street, to him they held the same significance and he never wanted that to change.

Sighing he let his head flop into the roof. He wondered what the Four were doing these days and whether they had noticed he was gone longer than he said he would be. Peter had told them before he left that he would be gone a while and he asked them to look out for anything major happening in Queens. He hoped that nothing had happened.

He suddenly jerked up as he heard the grandfather clock in the hallway chime, signifying that it was 4:30 and he quickly left the roof eager to finally have his conversation with the Professor.

 

 

As Peter walked down the corridor towards the Professor’s office, he saw Bobby and Kitty leave, not closing the door behind them. As they passed each other they smiled at him, but it seemed like more of a grimace and Peter assumed that they had been told some of what had happened to their friend Josh.

He paused at the door to knocked as he peered inside and then entered when the Professor motioned for him to come in, closing the door as he moved into the room.

Peter sat on the same sofa he had before and took a deep breath to calm himself in preparation for the questions he was about to ask. He didn’t want to know the answer to some of them, but he knew he couldn’t stay uninformed about the world surrounding him and the issues that would affect him.

The Professor smiled encouragingly towards him and he opened him mouth to ask the question that had been reoccurring in his mind.

“Is my aunt safe?” he asked his voice breaking at the end. “Because when I went their Daredevil said the men in the apartment couldn’t do anything to her without proof that she’s in contact with me, but if they are kidnapping people and experimenting on them, they why would they bother to wait?”

“Firstly, Daredevil told me about what happened when you were there, and he has promised me that he will keep an eye on her to keep her safe. They were still there when Daredevil went back to check on her, but they are accepting that you ran away for now.” The Professor reassured him. “And, if there comes a point when they do try to do anything, we have a plan in place to get her somewhere safe.”

The but away from you was implied, and Peter understood. If she came here and someone found her they would have a reason to search the entire school and they could even decide that it would be a good opportunity to round up the mutants here to study them.

Peter nodded his head and ploughed on with the next question before he lost his nerve. “Why am I the only one? The only teenage superhero mutate that you’ve taken in?” he clarified. “Why not Johnny Storm? He has a higher profile than I do so wouldn’t he be a better target?”

The Professor nodded, understanding how frustrating it must be for the boy in front of him to be put on the side lines when there were others in similar positions to him who were still out there. “As far as we’re aware the other teenage superheroes aren’t mutates and they don’t have as high a profile as you so they wouldn’t be as much use.” Then he held up a hand to halt Peter’s protest, “apart from Johnny Storm, who will be joining us soon.”

Peter blinked in shock, unable to imagine Reed, Sue or Ben allowing him out of their sight with the danger that had started.

“He was attacked several times during missions while the others were busy, and while he escaped it worried the others, so they decided to seclude themselves in Baxter building. However, several strike teams on different occasions have managed to breach the building, and on the most recent attempt he was almost take.”

Peter closed his eyes, shit.

“Their address is public” he said as he opened his eyes.

The Professor nodded with sadness in his eyes, “yes, and the media broadcasts their activities daily so anyone who wants to attack them always knows where to find them.”

“Is he okay?”

“He was a bit injured but from what I have heard he should be fine.” The Professor stated, watching the boy in front of him more closely. “Do you know him?”

“Yeah” Peter replied, his voice thick. “I helped out a bit when they were starting out, but I don’t think they see it that way.”

The Professor smiled sadly, “you tried to stop anyone from getting hurt in the beginning when they were just focused on stopping the ones they were fighting” he concluded.

Peter bobbed his head once, a sad smile on his face. “But I haven’t done that for a while now, so we get on better. Before I went to Germany, I asked them to look out for Queens for me.”

The Professor filed that away for later and just replied with a promise. “You will both be safe here.”

Peter looked up and help his gaze, holding the man to his word.

“What about the others? You said when I first arrived that you had rescued some of the people who had been taken.”

“The ones who were taken were mutants, not mutates.” The Professor was quick to clarify. “Unfortunately, some of them didn’t make it due to complications from the escape.”

“Complications?”

The Professor’s eyes hardened as he remembered what he had seen through the link he had maintained to the X-men he had sent on the rescue mission. “Some of the children had been experimented on more than others and they had been injected with an experimental drug. Very few of them survived.” He replied soberly. “Of the ones who were well enough to move on their own, some of them were shot whilst trying to escape the guards, and a few of the succumbed to their wounds.”

Just like Uncle Ben, Peter thought. Then he shook himself. He couldn’t have a panic attack now, and if he kept thinking about it he would.

“Where are they now? Are they safe?” he asked to try and keep his mind busy.

“They’re safe” the Professor replied.

“But you aren’t going to tell me where they are.” Peter stated.

“No” the Professor agreed with a small smile on his face. “It wouldn’t be good for you to know.”

“I understand” Peter replied, his eyes showing an age that betrayed his face.

 

 

Charles took a moment to marvel at the boy in front of him. He had overcome so much in his life, the loss of his parents, his uncle’s murder, the spider bite and now he had been ripped away from the only life he had know because of the decisions of adults.

He was astounded at the resilience and the dedication to the preservation of life that Peter showed.

“So” Peter said, breaking Charles’ train of thought. “What do I need to know about the mutant registration act?”

And so Charles began the long process of telling Peter how the idea of the act had come about through Trask’s need to understand and control mutants, it’s prevention due to Mystiques intervention when Erik tried to kill the president to prevent the creation of sentinels and how the cause had recently been taken up by Striker, a military man who wanted to use mutants as weapons and had been trying to create mutates for years.

He explained how they suspected that Secretary Ross was secretly working with Striker so that mutants and mutates who chose to be superheroes would be put on a registry and tracked at all times, with compulsory power analysis and instant imprisonment with no trial if it was deemed that their abilities had been misused.

Charles then spoke of how he and Erik had been recently sending teams to the same places, as both groups were now focused on saving mutant and mutates from the imprisonment and experimentation that was being forced on them. He explained how Erik and some of his team had turned up the day after Peter had arrived with Josh and the girl who had identified herself as flame unconscious and in need of immediate medical care.

Once he had explained all of this he waited to see if Peter now understood how dangerous he world had just become.

 

Peter felt his soul aching for the people who had been hurt by the actions of the people who were so prejudiced against mutants, and now mutates.

And then he felt his heart turn to stone as the Professor talked about the deceit that was present in the government by those who were supposed to protect the people in their care.

Finally, his heart shattered for those who had lost so much to the greed of the people who didn’t even see these people, his people, as human.

And with that shattering came a resolution.

He would help. And he would fight in whatever way he could to save the people who needed help.

But only when it would help, when they had a fully thought out plan and when he wouldn’t be a liability.

“Can I train?” he asked, staring into the Professor’s eyes to ensure the man saw the resolution he now held.

“We normally wait until students are 16 before we start training them for combat” the Professor began watching him with assessing eyes.

Peter didn’t move, he didn’t twitch. He just watched, waiting.

“But considering your background we will start to train you with the others.” The Professor concluded.

“Thank you” Peter replied, sincerity ringing in his voice.

He moved to get up, and then froze.

“What about flame?” he asked, and at the Professor’s raised eyebrow he elaborated. “Will she be staying here, or will she go with them?”

“That will be up to her to decide.” The Professor said, his tone making it clear that he would allow nothing less than that.

Peter nodded, thanked him and left.

He had a lot of information to process.


	17. Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter explains what he's going to do

Instead of going to the dining room to eat that night Peter chose to go to the kitchen so he wouldn’t have to talk to Kitty or Bobby. There was just too much information in his mind that he needed to sort through to be able to hold a normal conversation without snapping at one of them or having an anxiety attack from everything he had learned.

He quickly ate and some lasagne that had been left in the fridge in the area he had been told for anyone to eat and washed up his plate.

Just as he was about to turn around, he heard someone clearing their throat.

He tuned to see Wolverine standing there.

“Didn’t see you at supper so I came to check that you’re okay.” He said, leaning against the wall just to the side of the door.

Peter sighed and leaned against the sink, thinking back to all of the emotions that had gone through him as he learned everything.

“I’m not okay” he answered honestly “but I will be. I talked to the Professor and he told me the history behind the mutant registration act and the experiments that are being done on mutants and mutates.” He paused, “it makes me angry, but at the same time I know if I go out there like I did last time and try to do something I’m just going to make it worst.”

“So, what have you decided to do?” Wolverine asked, looking at him with no judgement on his face.

“I’m going to train.” Peter replied, looking straight at him to show that this wasn’t a whim, but a thought-out decision that he would follow through with no matter what. “The Professor said that because of my unique situation I can start training with the team, and the once I’m ready I can start to make a difference.”

 

 

Logan watched the boy in front of him gauging his resolve and was amazed to see how far the child in front of him had grown in the short time had had been here.

When he had first met Peter, he had looked at him the same as any of the students here. As someone to be protected until they learned to protect themselves, but even when they had still someone to look out for. He realised he was wrong. Peter Parker was someone who had been out there day after day protecting people already with no proper training and that already put him apart from the other students through sheer stubbornness and compassion. However, now he saw a different trait, the resolve to see this through to the end, to do whatever he could to save people and to be able to stand between innocents and harm.

It could be dangerous, but he figured with all this boy had seen in life he would be unlikely to lean towards the darker side of it like Magneto had. However, that is where all of the X-men came in, and they would teach him how to save people, but also to know when to stop so that he didn’t destroy himself in the process and become a twisted form of himself.

“Good” he said out loud, a small smile forming on his face.

“Thanks Wolverine.” The boy said to him, and when he raised his eyebrow in askance, they boy elaborated, “for explaining what you did before I went to see the Professor, it really helped.”

Logan nodded, and turned to leave, but before he did, he said “and it’s Logan kid.”

“Right” he heard “Logan.”

And he left with a small, self-satisfied smirk on his face. He was the first one to get the kid to call him by his name.

And he would need to when became their ally in the fight to come.

 

When Peter woke up the next morning he glanced at his alarm clock and saw that it was 30 minutes before he needed to wake up but after a moment of trying to get back to sleep he resigned himself to the fact that he needed to get up and rolled out of bed.

Onto the floor.

With a bang.

He groaned, today was not starting well.

 

He finally emerged from his room just after the alarm had gone off and he walked towards the dining room, watching while the nocturnal slipped into their rooms to sleep and the day students started to wake up. He smiled to himself, maybe he was getting used to this place.

 

Once he reached the dining room he quickly piled his plate up and went to his usual table to wait for Bobby and Kitty. After he had thought though everything the night before he felt up to company, and he wanted to talk to them about how they train since he would be joining them.

Around 10 minutes later he watched as a very sleepy Bobby stumbled into the room followed by Kitty who waked through the wall into the room, causing one of the younger kids walking past to spill their cereal everywhere. He shook his head smirking, she never learns.

He laughed when Bobby finally arrived at the table and slumped over, leaning his head on the table, then he groaned.

“Why does life hate me?” he moaned.

“Because you’re easy to hate” Kitty snarked as she slid into her seat with her bowl of cereal.

Bobby raised his head to glare at her, then went back to leaning his head on the desk.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked, barely hiding his snickering.

Bobby lifted his head to look at him and deadpanned, “no, I’m dead” and went back to laying on the table.

Peter turned to Kitty and raided his eyebrows.

“History test first thing.” She explained with an eye roll and then went back to eating.

Peter’s laughter broke free and Bobby sat up to glare at him. Peter just shook his head and went back to eating.

After a few moments of silence Bobby finally spoke.

“Did you eat last night?” he asked with deceptive nonchalance whilst eyeing the mountain on Peter’s plate.

“Yeah” Peter answered with his mouth full and then he swallowed. “Why?” he asked, starting to feel suspicious.

“No reason” Bobby replied and busied himself with his food, avoiding Peter’s gaze.

He swung his eyes towards Kitty and started at her until she started talking.

“fine” she relented, “it’s just that the last time you ate this much you hadn’t had supper the night before and we didn’t see you last night.”

“Oh” Peter said, now understanding what was going on as Bobby finally looked up to watch his reaction. “I spoke to the Professor for a while last night about everything.”

“And?” Kitty prompted.

“And I’m going to start training so that I can help.”

“Seriously?” Bobby asked, shock on his face. “He only lets us start properly training once we’re 16.”

“He said it’s because of my circumstances” Peter explained, hoping they understood as he didn’t want to announce to the entire room that he is, or maybe was he didn’t know yet, Spider-man,

They both nodded in understanding and the conversation lulled for a moment before Storm approached their table.

They all sat up a little straighter and gave them her full attention, waiting for her to tell them why she was here.

She smiled a little and handed Peter a piece of paper, said “good luck” and then walked off.

He looked down, saw that it was his timetable and smiled. Dr McCoy said that he had finished marking most of the exams and Cyclops was marking a few of them as well. They must have finished and put him into his classes.

“What’s that?” Kitty asked and leaned across to look at the paper, then she whistled. “Wow, you are smart.”

“Let me see” Bobby said, and Peter turned the timetable so he could see it as well. “Wow” was all he said.

“Is it that impressive?” he asked looking at it, not really noticing anything particularly impressive about it. Well, apart from quantum mechanics and something called X Chemistry.

They exchanged a look and then turned back to him with smirks on their faces.

“nothing” they both replied with the most innocent faces they could manage, then they left, leaving him frowning at his timetable in confusion.

“What’s wrong with it?” he muttered to himself as he looked at it. It looked similar to his normal timetable with mostly AP classes apart from the Math and Chemistry module. Then he shook his head and went back to eating, he’d figure it out soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always constructive criticism and Kudos please!!!


	18. First day of lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has his first day of lessons and tony realises that he's lost a certain superpowered kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long, I've been on holiday but I should be updating more often now :)

Well, Peter thought, that was why they looked at him so weirdly.

His day had started off well with a History class taught by Logan, who made it interesting by adding in small facts about the WWII as he had lived it. His next class had been quantum mechanics, and although he realised there were less people than normal, eight which was a lot less when compered to the normal amount of 12-15 people in other classes, and it was with people who were in their last year and looking to take a science in places like MIT and Cal-Tech.

After that though his day had become stranger. He had Advances Biochemistry with a group of 10 others who were all around 18 years old and, from what he had seen, looking to either Chemistry of Biology as their Major in University. Although things had returned to normal during his last lesion before lunch, Spanish, which he had with a girl called Rogue who could, apparently, drain people of their abilities through touch, as she had explained when he had almost brushed her whilst handing her a work sheet.

Lunch that day was nice and he sat with Rogue and Kitty, who already knew each other, but Bobby didn’t turn up and Peter had hoped that he had been allowed to see John at last.

He then had Geography, which was fine, if a little annoying as he was going to have to learn new case studies, but by the end he was feeling pretty unscathed and was wondering why Kitty and Bobby had such a strong reaction to his timetable.

Then he found out.

X Chemistry.

It had confused him as he couldn’t figure out what the X stood for as he had never heard of a course with the moniker X before.

Now he realised what it was.

It meant that he was already beyond the school syllabus and that the Professor had decided that instead of just not taking the subject Dr McCoy would teach him.

In one-on-one lessons.

As in just the two of them. With no one else.

Peter found himself cursing that it was the last lesson of the day as he knew he wouldn’t be able to get away with anything other that than being properly focussed and engaged with the lessons. Peter knew he loved Chemistry, but now he sort of missed the fact that he could just sleep throughout the lesson or chat with Ned and still be able to get over 80 % in the tests.

He been shocked when his timetable had said the dining room and had thought it was a mistake, but when he arrived he had been greeted by Dr McCoy who had escorted him down to the lab he had make his web fluid in the other day and then they had started talking. About his Chemistry classes at school, about what he had learned himself, and about how he had know how to make his web fluid in the first place.

Peter had thought that it would be a nice class if thing carried on like that. Peter grimaced thinking about it and pitied his past self’s naivety, how trusting he had been.

After the initial conversation that he now realised was to get a baseline of where he was Dr McCoy had started the lesson.

It had overrun by an hour.

An hour and a half full of theories and chemical mechanisms he had never heard of, as well as different types of materials he had never even considered to add to his web fluid to change it into a semi-conductor to form things like taser webs.

Peter groaned again and sunk further into the table in the dining room, his brain aching just thinking about it. What had he done to deserve this torture?

He lifted his head when he heard a chuckle to the left of him as a tray slid into place on the table.

It was Bobby, appearing to be struggling to prevent himself from having a full body laugh.

Peter looked at him deadpanned, and that was all it took to set him off.

“yo-you” Bobby said trying to speak through his laughter. “You look so done with life.”

“I am.” Peter said seriously, and then proceeded to flop back onto his arms.

“Oh, come on” Bobby said once he had most of his laughter under control, “it can’t have been that bad.”

Peter raised his head again to look at him with an incredulous look on his face. “It overran. By an hour. Two hours of chemistry with Dr McCoy. I couldn’t even understand what he said half the time.”

Bobby winced at that. “That bad, huh? Well at least it isn’t that often.” He said trying to cheer Peter up.

“It can’t be that bad” Rogue said as she slid into the seat across from Bobby with Kitty following just behind her.

“It is” Peter said and then dropped his head onto his arms again.

“Well, I heard something that’ll cheer you up” Kitty stated, swiftly changing the conversation.

“What did you hear this time?” Bobby asked as Peter look up in curiosity.

“Johnny Storm is coming tomorrow” She responded.

“here the hell did you hear that?” Rogue asked, looking slightly astonished. “They wouldn’t tell anyone before he arrived to make sure no one attack him before he got here.”

Peter nodded his head in agreement, he only knew because he had asked the Professor specifically the day before and he knew that no one else would have been told because it could put Johnny in danger.

“Who did you spy on?” Bobby asked, looking irritated.

Kitty winced and put her hands up placatingly, “I wasn’t spying, I just heard Hank and Scott talk about it when I was downstairs.”

“Don’t spread it around” Peter suddenly said, looking more serious than they had ever seen him. “They’ll find out in a few days anyway, there’s no reason to make a big deal out of it.” Then he picked up his food and left as quickly as he could whilst still walking.

The others were left in silence.

 

 

“Shit” Kitty said, running her hand through her hair as she realised that they must know each other. In fact, she knew Spider-man and the human torch knew each other, she had seen new articles of them fighting together to save the city.

She turned to look at Bobby just in time to see bump his head against the back of the chair with a pained look on his face, whilst Rogue just looked lost.

“I’ll go check on him” Bobby announced and headed for the door Peter had fled through.

When Rogue looked at her with a questioning look on her face she smiled tightly and shook her head. It was not her secret to tell.

Then she realised that the only reason Johnny Storm would be coming to the school would be if he was in danger, and so that meant that whoever was after Peter was now after Johnny as well. And she had just reminded him of it.

For the first time in a long time, she wished she had kept her mouth shut.

 

 

 

Tony swivelled in his chair at his desk in the tower, trying to find something to do so he wouldn’t have to go and talk to the others on his team.

Team. Yeah right, he thought with scorn. They weren’t a team, and although they had all come back from Germany together it could have ended very differently.

The two sides had been ready to attack each other, were in fact running straight at each other when T’Challa had suddenly stopped.

It had startled everyone that the one most motivated to attack the other side had stopped in his tracks, and it had been the reason that everyone had frozen and waited for the man who mourned his father to tell them why he no longer wanted the culprits head. His entire body had slumped as if someone had cut his strings, and then he began to explain what his people had found. He deactivated his armour and looked at them with a crushed gaze, them he showed them footage showing that another man had bombed the peace talks.

It caused Rogers to relax enough to tell his ream to stand down, and that resulted in Tony giving the same command. He hadn’t wanted to fight; he had just wanted them to stop and listen before things got worse. Once Tony had checked the evidence they decided what to do, and it was agreed by all that no one would speak of the fight that had almost occurred. From the point of view of the rest of the world the Avengers had disagreed on the Sokovia accords and had left to discuss it in private. They had sent Spider-man and Antman home, making sure there was no record of them ever being in the country and then they had talked.

Once they had properly discussed the accords after going through them for an entire day with a small army of lawyers, they had taken a vote and the majority had been against it, and so no one signed. They had then contacted the fantastic four to warn them about the accords and sent them a copy with all of their notes for changes on it, reasoning that if all Superheroes refused to sign it and presented a united front they would have no choice but to listen.

That had been almost a week ago, but a after few days of relative peace a new fight had erupted when Steve finally told Tony about Hydra murdering his parents, after which he was shown a video of it by Natasha with Rhodey there as moral support.

He was glad that Roger’s and Barnes had made themselves scarce for the next few days afterwards as he worked through his anger as he wasn’t sure if he could have stopped himself from attacking them. It had all been too raw.

As he sat there he wondered if it could have all gone differently. He had debated signing the accords before he left to go after Rogers and the others, but something didn’t feel right about making the team so divided. It felt like he was trying to force the others hand into signing it, and he wanted accountability, not persecution for those who didn’t conform to the mould by signing the document that had been hastily put together.

He realised now that that was one of the worst mistakes he could have made as it would have resulted in half the team being bound by law to arrest the rest of them. It also, he mussed, would have probably resulted in a certain spider joining the fight even though he had promised not to.

 

Tony suddenly sat up and checked the baby monitor footage to see what the kid was doing. He found nothing. Nothing since he had last seen the kid in Germany.

“FRIDAY” he called out.

“Yes boss?” the AI replied.

“Why is there no footage from the baby monitor?” he question, worried that the suit had been damaged and he hadn’t had an alert.

“The suit has not been worn since Germany” she replied.

Tony’s brow creased in confusion. There’s no way that the kid wouldn’t have been out for almost an entire week, he was too dedicated, felt too responsible for everything that went wrong to have voluntarily not gone out.

Maybe he was using his old suit.

“FRIDAY check for any mention of Spider-man in the media”

“There have been several mentions of Spider-man in the last week, all of which are speculating about the reason of his sudden disappearance.” She replied promptly.

Tony blinked in shock, “nothing in the last few days about his activities?” he asked in disbelief. “No stories about him rescuing cats from trees or helping little old ladies across the road?”

“No boss.”

He ran his hand through his hair, starting to feel worried.

Maybe the kid called Happy he reasoned; he had made the man the point of contact before he had sent the kid off on the plane.

“Call Happy”

“Calling Happy” FRIDAY responded.

“Boss?” the other man answered slightly confused.

“Has he contacted you?” Tony demanded, cutting to the chase.

“Who?”

“The kid. Has the kid contacted you?” Tony ground out through gritted teeth, hoping that he was just over reacting.

“What kid?” Happy asked bewildered that Tony had called him just to ask about some kid.

“The spider kid. You know the one. Small, young, talks a lot.” Tony exclaimed.

“Oh” Happy said, realised who Tony was talking about. “No he has-“

Tony cut off the call, now worried.

Shit, how did he lose a superpowered kid?


	19. Tony searches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony continues his search for Peter

Tony sat staring at the screen in front of him, trying to figure out what was going on with the kid.

First, he had tracked the suit, which wasn’t in the apartment but looked like it was at a local dump. He had sent Happy to pick it up, but he hadn’t heard back yet. He hoped that the kid had just found the tracker and he had cut it out and thrown it into a dumpster, but if he was being honest with himself, he knew that wasn’t the truth. The AI he had installed into the suit would have alerted him to any tampering or the tracker being removed and the training wheels protocol hadn’t been disabled so he knew that there was no reason for him to have suspected that he needed to be careful removing the tracker.

After tracking the suit, he had decided to track his phone, which hadn’t been on in the last four days.

He shook his head. This was just getting stranger and stranger.

After that he hacked into the school records and saw that he just hadn’t shown up to school for the past few days, but it didn’t seem like they were doing anything about it. In fact, he realised as he looked closer, the school had put him on indefinite leave without any communication with the kid’s Aunt.

It was like someone at the school had just decided that he wouldn’t be showing up for however long, and he realised as he searched further that as his name was on the indefinite leave list that he wouldn’t show up on any of the class registers.

It would look like he had just been pulled out of school, but he couldn’t find any proof of that.

“FRIDAY, search all CCTV for Peter Parker”

“searching”

He waited hoping that the kid had just run away. Shit, he thought to himself, how bad were things that he was hoping that the kid had just run away?

“Boss, there is no CCTV footage of Peter after he was dropped off at home five days ago” FRIDAY reported.

“Fuck” he muttered, cursing himself for not checking up on him sooner.

The he paused.

“FRIDAY, contact the fantastic four.”

“Tony? What’s wrong?” Richard Storm asked over the connection.

“You wouldn’t have had any contact with the spider kid since we got back from Germany, would you?”

“What?” The other man asked, confused. “Spider-man? No, no we haven’t talked to him since he left to go with you. He came to us to ask us to look out for Queens while he was gone but we haven’t heard from him since then.”

Tony rubbed his hands over his face, feeling his last hope crumble. He had hoped that the fantastic four would have heard from him and he knew that he would have told them if he knew he was going to be gone for a longer period of time.

“Uh look Tony” Tony jerked his head up, having forgotten he was still on the phone with the other man.

“If that’s all you needed I kind of need to go. There’s some stuff I need to do here.” Richard’s said sounding distracted.

“Oh, yeah.” Tony replied, shaking his head to try and get himself to think properly. “Could you just contact me if you hear from him? I need to talk to him.”

“Yeah” Richard’s responded, now sounding even more distracted and Tony could hear the sounds of an argument on the other side of the phone.

“Is everything alright over there?” he asked, worried that he had distracted the man in the middle of a fight.

“Yeah, everything’s fine over here.” Richard’s said, his voice sounding further away from the phone than before. “I need to go I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

Tony opened his mouth to respond but he was cut off by FRIDAY.

“He’s hung up boss.”

Tony nodded, rubbing his mouth before getting up to get another cup of coffee.

He needed to find that spider kid.

 

 

Bobby found Peter sat huddled against the wall in a deserted corridor. As he got closer he could hear the words that Peter was muttering.

“-fault. My fault. My fault.”

Starting to get concerned he crouched in front of his friend and tried to talk to him. To distract him, even just gain a tiny bit of his attention.

“Hey Peter. Are you okay?”

He was startled when Peter flinched at the sound, and as he watched the words grew more and more frantic.

“-yfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfau-“

Bobby kept calling Peter’s name softly and trying to get through to him.

“Peter. Peter, c’mon listen to me. Peter I know you can hear me.”

The sound of shoes scuffling caught his attention and he turned to face the person, prepared to force them to leave so they didn’t make him worse. Instead he came face to face with Scott, who when he noticed Peter’s state rushed over to them, taking Bobby’s place in front of Peter.

“How long has he been like this?” Scott asked, his gaze cataloguing Peter’s every movement.

“Not long” Bobby replied quickly. “He left supper and I followed him after about a minute. When I found him, he was like this.”

“What set him off?” Scott asked, noticing that Peter flinched every time they talked and that he had stopped muttering during their conversation.

“Kitty said something about Johnny Storm coming here tomorrow”

Scott suddenly turned to him, “how do you-, never mind. That shouldn’t have set him off, he knew Johnny was coming in a few days.”

The Scott’s face changed, understanding dawning on his features.

“Peter” he said quietly, gently taking Peter’s hands away from his face. “Johnny is fine. Did you hear me? I said Johnny is fine.”

Bobby watched in awe as Scott managed to get Peter to nod his understanding after just a few sentences, when he had been trying for much longer.

“Good” Scott stated calmly. “The reason he is arriving tomorrow isn’t because of an attack, it’s because the accords are being re-written and Reed and Sue don’t want him in the middle of it.”

At that Peter lifts his head to look at Scott properly. “Really?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“Really” Scott replies, his voice as serious as his face.

Peter nods, and takes a deep breathe. “Okay” he said, his voice breaking towards the end of the word.

“Okay” Scott repeats.

Bobby just sat there, astounded at how quickly Scott calmed Peter down from the panic he was experiencing and disappointed with himself for not being able to help his friend.

Scott sat with them both in silence for a while before he spoke.

“Are you both okay now?” he asked.

Both Bobby and Peter nodded, with Peter ducking his head in embarrassment at being found in the state he was.

“Okay” Scott replied, taking them at their word. “I need to go help with something so I’m going to leave you two here. Is that okay?” He stared individually at them until they both said yes and then he left.

“Well that was eventful” Bobby said after a moment of silence and was surprised when he god a small chuckle out of Peter.

He smirked, sat next to Peter and bumped his arm to Peter’s.

“We’ll sit here however long you want.” He said to Peter, making sure he knew he was there for him.

Peter flashed a grateful smile at him and they sat, listening to the people go past the corridor, but never going in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always really appreciated!


	20. The build up

The next morning Peter sat in the dining room his leg jiggling as he ate, excited but anxious for Johnny’s arrival.

“You know everything’s going to be fine right?” Bobby asked looking at him critically.

At Peter’s confused frown he explained “no one knows what’s happening, and they’ll have different routes planned, as well as X-men who aren’t teaching to escort him, and I heard the _other group_ is going to help out.”

“Probably” Peter acknowledged, and went back to eating his mountain of food, but his leg didn’t stop moving.

They both looked up as Kitty dropped her tray on their table, looking as though she had barely slept.

“Are you… okay?” Peter finally asked but shut up when she glowered at him.

“I’m fine.” She snapped at him, daring him with her gaze to say more.

He wisely kept his mouth shut.

“So, did you two have a good night last night?” she asked slightly accusingly, seeming to have gotten over her embarrassment from putting her foot in her mouth the night before.

Peter and Bobby’s eyes widened as they realised that they hadn’t seen Kitty since they both rushed out of the room the night before.

“Uh, yeah, sorry about that” Bobby stumbled out, and opened his mouth to say more but he was interrupted by Rogue chuckling to herself as she joined them at the table, her face lined with mirth.

“Di-did you hear what she did last night?” Rogue asked, barely keeping her laughter in check.

“No…” Peter replied, turning to look at Kitty curiously, and his eyebrows raised as she blushed and looked away. “What happened?” He asked, turning back to Rogue.

“Well” Rogue drawled, a shit-eating grin on her face. “ _Someone_ thought that you two would have gone to the bathroom to have some privacy and instead of knocking like a normal person, she walked straight through the wall. Into a room full of half-naked boys.”

“Y-you did what?” Bobby chocked out, whilst trying to contain his laughter.

Rogue nodded gleefully; her mouth stretched wide in a grin. “Yeah, and then she couldn’t sleep because she felt so traumatised.”

At that the three of them burst out laughing, their bodies jerking from the effort of trying to contain it, looking at Kitty with mirth in their eyes as she became redder and redder.

“Wow” Peter said, finally finding his voice, “that’s, um, that’s impressive.”

They all promptly dissolved into laughter again.

“Yeah, yeah. Very funny” Kitty grumbled, trying to appear irritated, but the effect was lost with the upwards twitch of her lips.

Once they had all relatively calmed down and began eating again Bobby spoke.

“I still can’t believe you did that.”

“I was worried okay?” Kitty said trying to defend herself, “and I’m sorry.” She looked directly at Peter as she uttered her apology, and at his cocked head she went on, “I shouldn’t have told you what I heard and I should have realised that he is your friend. It’s not nice to hear that your friend is coming here when the reason you’re here in the first place is to protect you.”

Peter nodded, having sobered as she went on. He was glad that she had reflected on what had happened, and he knew it wasn’t like her to apologise so formally and so he offered it the respect it deserved instead of just dismissing it.

“I accept your apology.”

And with that the matter was closed, and they moved the conversation onto more inane topics, like the insane amount of homework they were getting.

During their conversation he felt a tingle in the back of his mind and he paused, looking around to try and find the reason.

 _“Peter, can you come and see me in my office instead of going to your first lesson?”_ The Professor asked.

 _“I can come now if you need me to”_ Peter replied, starting to worry that something had gone wrong with Johnny’s transport.

 _“It can wait until the first period”_ came the reply and Peter relaxed. If something had gone really wrong, then the Professor would have taken him up on his offer.

_“I’ll see you then”_

The connection cut off.

And the wait began.

 

 

Tony grumbled, reaching for his coffee only to find that his mug was empty. He ran a hand down his face, and got to his feet, stumbling into the elevator.

“Common room” He told FRIDAY, still racking his brain for where the kid could be.

He was still trying to find the kid, but everything he did failed. He had hoped that the suit would give some indication to where the kid had gone, but he only found that the suit had been thrown out on the same day that Happy had dropped him off. The phone had been active for two more days though, so maybe he just decided he didn’t want his help.

No, he decided as he stumbled through the common room and into the kitchen, turning on the coffee machine, the kid was way too excited to just drop everything and not give him a call. I mean the kid had recorded everything he was so excited!

He froze at that.

If the kid was so excited that he recorded the trip, and was falling over himself to thank him for the new suit every chance he got to the point it was almost painful… Then what had changed.

He started turning it over in his head.

What could have changed?

It didn’t seem like the kid would have done it willingly, and the way that the school had written off his absences was strange.

He kept thinking as he poured himself a cup of coffee and then he started towards the elevator again.

It had to have happened when he had just got home.

Then he realised a simple solution.

I’ll just have to ask aunt hottie.

 

 

The other Avengers sat in the common room, staring after Tony.

“Is he okay?” Clint finally asked.

“He’s probably just spent the night in his lab” Steve dismissed, turning back to Bucky.

“Hmm” Clint murmured, not sure that was it. He knew the others didn’t really notice it but Tony usually scanned the room when he entered it, and if Steve or Bucky were there he usually avoided the room or stayed as far away as possible.

This was different.

It looked like he didn’t even register that they were in the room.

He looked across and shared a glance with Natasha.

She had realised it too.

They needed to keep an eye on Tony because this wasn’t just a normal research or suit building binge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give constructive criticism and anything you think would be good to happen!!


	21. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter goes to talk to the Professor about things

Peter knocked on the Professor’s door and stuck his head inside.

“You wanted to see me.” He stated.

Then he froze.

What was Magneto doing there?

“Yes” the Professor said looking towards him, “come sit down.” He gestured towards the desk and made his way to the other side of it, with Magneto choosing to stand at the edge of the desk instead of sitting at the chair on Peter’s side of the desk.

Once Peter sat down the Professor began.

“There are several things I wanted to discuss with you, but considering Erik is here I’m going to start with something he’s brought up.”

Peter nodded; his mouth dry as he tried to think of a reason for the man to talk to the Professor about him.

“Magneto knows you’re Spider-man.” The Professor announced, watching him to see what his reaction would be.

Peter just sighed and nodded; he had known that Magneto would have probably figured it out considering he webbed the man’s mouth shut. To be honest the only reason this conversation hadn’t happened before was probably because they needed to take care of Flame.

“And?” Peter asked, feeling well and truly done with the situation already and expecting to be told he was too young to be Spider-man.

“And you’re a child.” Magneto replied studying him with a blank face.

“And?” Peter asked again.

“What do you mean and?” Magneto questioned not taking his eyes off of Peter.

“And what does me legally being a child have to do with this?” Peter replied, then held up his hand to silence Magneto before steaming ahead. “Nothing you can say will stop me being Spider-man. Sure, I’m legally a child but I have also been Spider-man for over a year now and there is no reason for me to stop doing it. I understand that I’m here because of the possibility of a registration act as well as to prevent me being kidnapped and experimented on. I agree with that and I’m not going to do anything that would put people in danger but I’m not just going to sit on the side-lines when I can do something to help.”

Magneto looked at him as if searching for something, then he turned to look at the Professor.

“Satisfied?” the Professor asked, a smile on his face.

Magneto paused and then nodded. “There’s nothing I can do to stop him.”

“I know” the Professor replied.

Magneto nodded and then turned to face Peter again.

“Are you training yet?”

“I’m planning to soon” Peter replied, a bit confused by the sudden about turn Magneto had done.

“Today” Magneto declared.

“Today?” Peter questioned, looking to the Professor for an explanation.

“Flame is training with us today as well, so you can join in and we can see what you need to work on” the Professor clarified.

Peter swung his gaze back to Magneto in confusion. “You want to help train me?” he asked in disbelief.

“No.” Magneto stated. “I don’t want to but if you’re so set on this then you need be trained so that you don’t do something stupid and get yourself killed.”

With that Magneto turned and left the room through a hidden door in the wall that seemed to lead to a private area.

“What?” Peter questioned turning to the Professor again. The man had a small smile on his face.

“He’s going to help train you alongside Flame.”

“But he said he didn’t want to?”

“I don’t know how much you know about Erik.” The Professor said, “but he doesn’t like child soldiers.” The Professor held up a hand. “I know you aren’t one, but he wanted to make sure you were doing this for your own reasons. The reason Erik is helping you is so that when you inevitably are involved in the coming conflict you can protect yourself instead of needing others to protect you.” The Professor paused and seemed to consider something before he spoke again, “there is also the fact that if you trained at the same time as the other students who need help with their abilities then more people would realise your identity.”

“He wants to help me protect my identity?” Peter asked, still confused.

“Something like that” the Professor replied, then he changed the topic. “As Scott has told you the date for Johnny’s arrival was moved up because of the negotiations for the Accords.” He waited for Peter’s nod before he continued. “The Avengers, Fantastic four bar Johnny and a representative for the X-men to be a speaker for mutants are meeting later today to discuss the Accords and any changes the participants want to make.”

“Why are they just starting from scratch instead of trying to change the current ones?” Peter asked and when the Professor gave him a look asking him to explain further, he went on. “Wouldn’t it be easier to build up a document made by our side so that we know that there isn’t anything hidden in the writing that they could use later?”

“I’ll pass along your suggestion” the Professor said, and Peter was shocked that he was being taken so seriously.

“That’s one of the things I want to discuss with you” he continued, “we will of course go over the Accords with you once they’re finalised, but would you like to be involved in creating them? And if so, do you want to do it with us as your proxy or for us to let them know that we’re in contact with you?”

It suddenly hit Peter that no one but the X-men knew where he was, or who he is.

“Could you say that we had talked about it before? The building it up from the ground up thing.” Peter replied.

The Professor nodded. “The other thing I want to discuss is whether other people know that you’re Spider-man.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the X-men as well as Kitty and Bobby know you’re Spider-man, but do any of the other Superheroes or people in your life know?”

“Um, Mr Stark and his driver Happy know” Peter replied, “and Daredevil figured it out, but I don’t know that anyone else does.”

The Professor nodded at that like he had expected the answer. “Do you plan on letting Johnny know?”

“Uh, um” Peter floundered, “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“It’s alright if you don’t want to tell him” he was told, “but if you are planning to then sooner rather than later would be better.

Peter nodded, realising how bad Johnny would probably feel if he wasn’t told when everyone else here knew, but he also knew that if he told Johnny it would be unfair to ask him not to tell Sue, Reed and Ben. There was also the possibility that Johnny could figure it out himself just form the rumours about how he was on the roof earlier, or the web-shooters he had taken to wearing everywhere. It wasn’t like Johnny was stupid or he had been wearing a mask.

“When is Johnny arriving?” He asked, wanting to know how long he had to make the decision.

“You’ll probably seen him at lunch, but it could be supper.” The Professor replied with a small smile on his face and Peter knew he wouldn’t get any more information out of him.

“Thank you for telling me about the Accords” Peter said instead of asking more questions and got to his feet.

The old man smiled as he left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to make it longer but then I decided to just put up what I'd written because it was a good place to stop.
> 
> Constructive criticism is always appreciated!!


	22. Beginings of negotiations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lead up to and the beginnings of the negotiations for the changes to the accords.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of your support, I am over the moon at the amount of subscriptions and kudos I have received for this. I hope you enjoy this chapter as well :)

“So, where were you?” Rogue asked as they sat down for lunch, “you didn’t come to the first lesson.”

“I was talking with the Professor” he answered and waited for them to ask more but to his surprise they didn’t. They just acted like meeting with the professor was an explanation in and of itself which he supposed it was. Most people when they went to meet him talked about their abilities, families or general well being which were all incredibly personal and generally considered taboo in the school unless the person who it was about decided to tell people. However, most people at the school were actually very open with each other about their abilities as it seemed, for the most part, that there were abilities that could cancel each other out and that was really helpful if you were worried that you were about to go out of control.

“So, what did you guys do today?” he asked, making the conscious decision not to tell them yet about the remaking of the accords as there was already a representative from the X-men going and it wasn’t really his place to let them know. It was the Professors’.

“I died” Kitty moaned and dramatically threw herself onto the table to the snickering of the others then she straightened. “But seriously it was terrible. I had three tests in one morning. Three! It’s inhumane.” Then she watched with a small smile as the others faces shined with their mirth and she knew that she had made up for her mistake the night before, even if it was in her own and unconventional way. Even if it had been by the embarrassment of the Bathroom incident and the karmic torture of the three exams.

“How were yours?” Bobby asked, his face still wearing the laughter of before.

“Alright, but I swear they are trying to kill me with these classes” he groused. “I mean I like it, like a lot, that I get to do more advanced stuff than before I came here but I think that all of these advanced classes together are going to put me in my grave.”

“Oh sure Mr-I-got-given-placement-tests-before-my-first-lesson” Kitty said rolling her eyes, but then she squeaked as Rogue spat out some of her water.

“You did the test before you had any lessons?” She asked with shock clear on her face.

“Uh yeah…” Peter said, starting to become confused. “But that’s what happens with everyone right?” He waited for any of them to agree with him. They didn’t. “But you said it was normal” He said with his gaze darting from Kitty to Bobby and back again.

“Well…” Bobby started.

“Dr McCoy looked like he didn’t want you to know, and it was kind of funny watching you go through that without knowing that only the smartest people have to do it.” Kitty finished with a smirk on her face.

Peter groaned and threw his head back. “Why do I have suck horrible friends?” he moaned.

The other three laughed, but they were secretly were filled with joy at the easy way the secretive and guarded boy had referred to them as friends.

 

 

Tony woke up to the sound of his alarm and he lifted his head to look blearily around.

What the-

How had he gotten to bed?

The last thing he remembered was searching for the kid and drinking what Natasha had given him….

He bolted upright in bed and threw himself out of it ready to find her and yell at her. He had lost so much time. If he had been working, he could have found him already!

Just before he reached the door FRIDAY’s words started registering with him.

“-almost all here to begin the discussion for the rewriting of the Accords. Everyone should arrive within the next half an hour.”

Horror slowly crept in.

Shit!

He had forgotten that he needed to go over the Accords and come up with some suggestions for the rewriting. Hell, he had forgotten all about it once he had realised the kid was missing. Okay that wasn’t really true he acknowledged; he had already mostly forgotten about it once he was told of his Mother’s death at the hands of the HYDRA assassin the Winter Soldier.

He paused to question that.

Was it just the Winter soldier, the persona that had been forced on a tortured POW, or was it also Bucky, Captain America’s childhood friend who had fought for his country and had been presumed dead after falling from a train on a mission in the war?

He thought about it as he washed the grim from the last few days off of himself, silently admitting to himself that he had needed the sleep that he had been resisting from the fear that it would cause him to relieve his parents death over and over again.

He started to make his way to the meeting room, adjusting his cufflinks as he went, not registering that he had chosen one of his favourite suits that he wore as armour just as he wore his ironman armour.

Yes, he realised as he crossed the threshold into the meeting room, he did only blame the Winter Soldier for his parents’ murder and not the tortured man who had started to peek out from beneath the carefully blank veneer.

 

 

Peter walked down the hall towards his room having just finished his last lesson of the day. He was so glad it was over. I mean who needed English anyway? He could already read and write so why did he need to do anything more?

Then he remembered. If he didn’t do English, he would have more time for science, and he was finally at the stage where even he could admit to himself that there could be too much of a good thing. It was better that he sat through almost an hour of English than try to figure out some of the most complicated biology he had ever seen. Although to be fair to his teacher it was really interesting, but you could only go so long discussing the different reasons for specific mutations occurring before it started to become a bit tedious.

Just before he turned down the corridor towards his room, he saw Logan coming towards him, the mans eyes looking straight at him.

Peter raised his eyebrows slightly to question whether it was time to go down to train now and he smiled slightly at the nod he received.

He spoke just as Logan reached him. “I just need to drop my bag off and get chan-“ he broke off when Logan suddenly grabbed his bag off his shoulder. “Hey!”

Logan just smirked at him and shouldered the bag. “Go down the way you were taken up before and someone will meet you at the bottom.”

At Peter’s still slightly confused look he sighed, “you already have you tools right?” He said referring to the web shooters on Peter’s wrist and at the boys nod he continued. “Today isn’t going to be that hard but you should be able to do it in what you’re wearing.”

Peter continued to drill into him with his gaze.

Logan sighed and handed the bag back. “Fine, but you need to hurry because the Professor wanted you there five minutes ago.”

Peter smiled and darted towards his room calling out a “thanks Logan” as he went.

 

Tony sighed and ran his hands through his hair.

They had been at this for almost two hours and the mutant representatives hadn’t even arrived yet, so that just left him with the “team” and three of the fantastic four.

It was not going well.

Mostly it had been Steve on his high horse yelling about rights with Tony arguing back that they needed to have some type of restrictions in what they could and could not do. That had been the first 30 minutes.

He had eventually given up on making Steve see reason and had sent a message to Pepper for the logic that only her presence among then seemed to bring.

She had arrived 30 minutes ago after going through the version they had been presented with by Ross. She had not been happy.

First she had berated all of them for not talking it over initially like a team and letting it get to the point where they had involved other in their “squabble”, then she had ranted about how men like Ross used situations like these to put powerful people like them under their thumbs.

Now they were all sitting quietly, well and truly cowed by the force of nature that is Pepper Potts.

Tony cleared his throat. “So what we’ve decided is that these are completely against human rights and that anyone convicted under them won’t even be given a trial before being sent off to the Raft.” He waited until everyone at the table, including the three members of the fantastic four, nodded. “So we’re all agreed that we are all against this and refuse to sign it?” More nodding.

Then Reed spoke up. “We all agree about that, but they’re saying that if we aren’t regulated then we’ll all have to retire or be sent to the raft anyway.”

“We could blow up the raft” Clint suggested, then flinched in preparation for Natasha to whack him on the back of the head. It never came.

He looked up to see everyone at the table actually considering what he had said. “I hate to be the one to say this considering it was my idea, but don’t you think that we would be the first suspects considering that we are the ones who would be locked away there?”

They all looked a bit grimmer at that.

Then Vision spoke up, “I have also calculated that it would also only take them around 18 months to build another one given the resources they have access to.”

“So, it would only be a stop gap at best” Steve concurred.

“Worse than that” a new voice said.

The group turned to meet the intruder, reaching for their weapons as they went, only to stop when they realised who had spoken.

It was Jean Grey, with the one they called Nightcrawler accompanying her as well as Dr McCoy, or Beast as he was also known as.

“Why would it be worse?” Steve asked, looking less combative than he had been with Tony.

“Because then they would feel threatened, and that’s the last thing we want” Dr McCoy replied as the three crossed into the room and took their place at the table.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is a slow burn but the next chapter will have the meeting between Johnny and Peter (if all goes to plan)


	23. Talks and revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The talks occur and Peter and Johnny meet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your Kudos, I can't believe I have over 300!!

“Why would we care if they are frightened?” Asked Wanda, not seeing the potential fallout that could occur if everyone decided they were too dangerous. But then how could she, Tony mused to himself, when they had welcomed her with open arms after Ultron occurred because once she realised the murderbot wanted to wipe out humanity she changed sides. She had been shielded by Steve from the possible ramifications of her actions by the team who had remained after he had retired by not revealing the part she played in his initial attack on them that led to the Hulk going wild.

Tony could see the confusion on the faces of the X-men as she failed to see what they saw as an obvious point, but he knew he couldn’t be the one to explain it as, although they were on friendlier terms in the professional sense of the word, there was still very little trust between them.

“Wouldn’t it work in our favour?” Steve asked, “wouldn’t it mean that they were more cautious in the moves they made against us?”

Tony closed his eyes with a brief prayer, oh you poor stupid capsicle he thought.

“No” Natasha replied, her mind having apparently run through the different ways they could spin it if the governments became afraid of them. “They could appeal to other black ops agencies for help if we destroyed it and use it as proof that we’re out of control. They could call for a man hunt.”

There was a moment of silence as they digested that and Tony looked around the room to gauge how they were reacting to the realisation that a heavy handed or straight forward approach wouldn’t’ work. Steve still looked a little reticent at the idea of not destroying the immediate threat as he would have done when he was leading the commandos, but he acknowledged Natasha’s experience in this modern world and followed her logic. Sam looked ashen as he started to realise what could happen if they pissed off all of the major powers of the world who were, at present, calling for them to be controlled. Wanda seemed to understand as in her country the one with the largest power decided how things went, and unfortunately, they were no longer the greatest power.

What made him pause, however, were the haunted looks in the members of the fantastic fours eyes and as he quickly ran his mind over everything he knew about them he was startled to realise that he couldn’t explain it. He could think of no reason for them to know the danger they would face if they went against the black ops forces of one country, let alone the world.

Unless…

“Where’s Johnny?” Tony asked, noticing how Reed jerked slightly at the mention of the youngest member of their team while Ben and Sue subconsciously assumed a defensive stance, as if they were prepared to protect themselves. Where had that habit come from.

“Tony that’s not relevant” Steve admonished, trying to get the conversation back on track, only to be interrupted by Clint.

“No, it is important.” Clint stated, watching them with laser precision. “He isn’t here, and he hasn’t been seen anywhere else today and we all know the hot head can’t stay out of the media’s attention for long.”

As he spoke Reed grimaced slightly, which appeared to be enough of a conformation for Natasha as she continued.

“You’ve barely left the Baxter building lately, and for the last week Johnny hasn’t been seen without at least two of you with him.” She paused as the swept her gaze over them. “So where is he now? Why have you let him out of your sites after a week being glued to his side? You’ve even cut back on going out to fight the lesser villains that you team up with Spider-man to fight.”

Tony watched as Reed’s gaze slide towards the X-men and turned to see what they were doing.

Jean had a small smile on her face, but the rest of her seemed to be showed in sorrow.

“I hadn’t expected you to catch on so quickly” Jean replied, obviously having taken the lead from Reed.

“Is he okay?” Pepper asked, having remained silent after her rant until now.

“He is safe, but that is all I can tell you.” She replied.

The room exploded into noise.

“What do you mean safe?”

“Why won’t you tell us?”

“What happened?”

The questions were volleyed one after another towards the mutant representative until she held up her hand. They fell silent.

“Due to circumstances which aren’t mine to explain Johnny has been relocated to an undisclosed area until a time when the circumstances which caused his departure are dealt with.” Jean explained.

“Which means something happened and you took him somewhere to stop something else happening and until the reason for it happening is dealt with, he’s not coming back.” Tony stated.

“Exactly” Dr McCoy replied with an inclination of him head.

“Why won’t you tell us?” Sam asked, “We could have helped.”

“No, you couldn’t” Sue replied.

This was why Reed had been so distracted when he had phoned before Tony realised, they had probably just told Johnny he was leaving and the fight was a result of that. A frown flitted across his face as he thought about it. Two superhumans who were around the same age disappearing at around the same time without warning and no one telling them anything about it…

“Is this why Spider-man is missing?” Tony blurted out, watching all of the X-men present for their reactions.

This time Dr McCoy did smile. “It’s related yes.”

“Why are you smiling?” Vision questioned, “why would you smile when it was obviously something bad that forced them to leave.”

Dr McCoy let out a little chuckle and Tony had to stop himself from sprinting over to shake the man and force him to tell him where the kid was. “I’m smiling because I’ve met Spider-man and he is one of the smarted and dumbest people I’ve ever met, but also the kindest.”

Okay so maybe he did know the kid Tony acknowledged.

“Smartest but dumbest?” Natasha questioned smirking, “sounds like Tony.”

“I resent that based on how true it is” he replied, then focused in on Dr McCoy again. “What did he do?”

“He webbed Magneto’s mouth shut.” The man stated, then paused to let that settle in as they started to snicker. “Without meaning to and then he had to remove the web so that we could continue the conversation.”

The final part caused the tense atmosphere that had been in the background to well and truly shatter as they began laughing.

“Only that weirdo” Sam said, shaking his head.

At Natasha’s raised eyebrow in his direction he nodded his head to let her know that this was something the kid would do and not something the mutants had made up to get them to relax.

“And on the topic of Spider-man” Sue started as she looked towards Jean, “do you know if anyone is taking care of Queens? He asked us to look out for it for a while but with Johnny we’ve been a little busy.” She looked slightly apologetic at that.

“Yes,” Jean said smiling slightly, “Daredevil volunteered to look after it until Spidey can come back.”

“Daredevil?” Rhodey asked in disbelief. “The guy who beats people up with batons until they can’t move is looking after the area of the guy who webs people up and helps old ladies across streets?”

“Let’s just say they have an understanding” Jean replied with a knowing glint in her eyes.

“That doesn’t explain anything.” Tony noted and sighed when her smile widened.

“Does this mean that Spidey isn’t going to be involved in this?” Ben asked, breaking his silence.

“Not technically” Dr McCoy replied, “but he did suggest that instead of trying to remake the accords we come up with out own version that we write from the bottom up so that we can make sure that there are no sneaky things that we didn’t realise applied.”

Tony smirked slightly at that. Even while missing the kid was still having a positive effect on people.

“Let’s try it.” Steve announced, and then he asked FRIDAY to bring up the general points form the Sokovia Accords.

Maybe this would work after all.

 

 

Peter met Storm at bottom of the elevator, and she led him towards a room with a big open space.

He walked into it and turned around, marvelling at the ceiling which held an obstacle course that he was itching to try. It had been so long since he had flown on his webs.

“Hey” A voice came from behind him.

He spun and his grin split his face.

“Flame!” he exclaimed, and he sped towards her but stopped when her flames started to circle.

She grimaced slightly, “I still don’t really control them.”

“Then I guess you’re in the right place.”

She smiled slightly and took in the room around her, noticing that here was nothing around that she could damage with her fire. “I guess I am.”

“Good, you’re both here” Cyclops said from behind them. “I’m going to be helping you with your training, but first I need to know what you can do.” When they nodded he continued, “Flame you’ll go first as I already have an idea of where Peter is at.”

Flame smiled at him slightly and made her way into the middle of the room to try to stop her flames from hurting the others if they went out of control.

While she was walking Peter looked to Cyclops to ask what he should do while he waited when the man jerked his head towards the door. Peter nodded, he knew what it was like when she lost control and he didn’t want to experience it again.

He walked to the doorway and stood just inside so that he could dive backwards if he needed to, but he still wanted to watch to give her some moral support.

He lost time as he watched the Cyclops run her through what she could do, which resulted in her losing control, and then some ways to control her emotions so that she would be less likely to inadvertently trigger her abilities.

As he watched he marvelled at the flames and how they looked like serpents as they wound their way around her to protect her and how it seemed like they were alive as even when she was relaxed, if a person came too close to her they would cause a small explosion.

“I see why they asked me to come down here.”

Peter turned to look towards his left, having sensed the person coming up behind him before he arrived.

“Well you would probably help” Peter told Johnny as he went back to watching Flame.

They stood in silence for a moment before Johnny asked, “aren’t you going to ask what I’m doing here?”

“No” Peter replied easily, although his stomach was flipping in trepidation because of the decision he had made. “If the Professor brought you here then he had a reason.”

“Who are you?” Johnny asked, sounding confused that Peter hadn’t fanned over him or at the very least look shocked by his presence.

Peter just smirked, wanting to wait for the right time.

It was then that Cyclops called him over to ask him to show what he could do.

Peter took a deep calming breathe.

“I’m Peter” He said and looked over at Johnny, “but I think you know me by a different name.” His face split into a grin at the confusion on Johnny’s face. “Don’t think too hard Hot head, it’ll hurt your brain.”

Then he jogged towards Cyclops leaving a shocked but still slightly disbelieving Johnny behind.

“The course on the ceiling, right?” he checked.

Cyclops looked past Peter to Johnny and let out a small chuckle at the look on the kid’s face. “If you’re sure.”

Peter nodded and grinned.

Then he shot out a web and launched himself onto the course, laughing when he heard Johnny’s cursing behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment any constructive criticism you have or if you just want to say something!!


	24. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The training session continues

Peter was halfway around the course when he heard swearing from below.

“-fuck was he thinking? I’m going to kill that idiot. Doesn’t he know how many people-“

He snickered to himself as he launched off and ring, flipped and landed upside down on his feet so that he could look at everyone below him.

“You alright hot head?” He called out to Johnny, grinning cheekily only to yelp when he heard Johnny’s reply.

“I’ll show you hot head. Flame on!”

Peter scrambled onto the next obstacle, shooting out webs as quickly as he could as he ran from his friend who was cackling as he chased him.

Almost there he thought, seeing the end of the course in sight when the web he was using broke after it was hit by a fire ball. Shit he thought and fired another one, moving onto the penultimate obstacle before sensing a fire ball coming in his direction.

He dodged on instinct, but lost his balance falling.

“Damn!”

He shot out a web but missed and went plummeting towards the ground with the scream of Flame accompanying him.

Peter closed his eyes internally cursing Johnny and knowing the other boy would never let him live it down.

Arms caught him and his speed gradually decreased.

Peter opened his eyes to Johnny’s smiling face.

“I know I’m hot, but you didn’t have to literally fall for me” Johnny teased as the took them both to the ground, releasing him when he landed.

Peter grumbled and pushed Johnny rolling his eyes, but internally he was really glad that his friend wasn’t treating him any differently.

They both looked over as they heard running, seeing Flame jogging towards them with a look of disguised awe on her face.

“How can you control it so you don’t hurt him?” She demanded, an intense look of concentration now mingling with trepidation on her face.

“What do you mean?” Johnny replied looking serious.

“Whenever I use my abilities, and someone is around me…. If they get too close my flames react and they cause an explosion to force the person away from me.” Flame explained, looking like she was having to physically force the words from her mouth.

Peter watched, shocked that she was showing some vulnerability to Johnny when it had taken longer for him to get her to dampen down her flames that it had taken Johnny to get her to open up, but he also realised that Johnny was probably the first person with her abilities that she had seen who wasn’t in the facility with her.

“Control” he answered, smiling slightly. “When I first got my abilities I kept setting things on fire accidentally and destroying my clothes.”

“What changed?” She asked, looking at Johnny intently.

“Well first of all my brother-in-law made some clothes that wouldn’t burn when I set myself on fire.” He explained with a wry smile. “Then I started to train, but not properly. At first it was just for fun, a party trick that would get me what I wanted.” A dark look crossed his eyes. “Then something happened and if it wasn’t for this guy here” he jerked his thumb at Peter, “then I don’t know if my family would all be here.” Johnny gave a dry chuckle. “It’s the only time I’ve ever seen him truly angry. He yelled at us for endangering the people we were trying to protect and said that if we couldn’t get our abilities under control then we should just stay out of the way.”

Flame had a slightly confused look on her face as she turned to look at Peter, who supported a slightly sheepish smile on his face.

“It worked” he muttered.

“It did” Johnny agreed. “We went away and we trained. That brother-in-law I mentioned built a simulations room so that we could get used to what we could do and I got better at controlling it.”

“So you learned to no burn people in a simulation room?” She asked, the scepticism clear on her face.

“Hell no” Johnny snorted. “This idiot got hit out of the sky during a team up a few months in and by this point we had become friends so I flew after him to save him and only realised I would probably burn him alive just before I caught him so I turned my fire off.”

Flame’s mouth dropped open. “Are you stupid?” she asked in disbelief.

“Probably” he answered smiling.

Peter stepped on his foot and gestured for him to continue.

Johnny rolled his eyes but complied.

“Well I still had to save this damsel in distress, so I tried something I’d never done before. And it worked.”

Flame looked disappointed at the lack of details for how it worked, and Peter was just about to make Johnny explain it more when he heard a laugh behind then.

Logan.

“You call that mess working?” The man asked, his body shaking with the need to laugh and his eyes watering.

“It wasn’t that bad” Peter defended.

“Wasn’t that bad?” he repeated. “You were left with a ruined suit that was partially on fire even after you dove out of his hands and tried to web yourself to anything near you to get away from him.”

“It worked? Really?” Flame deadpanned, looking at both of them like they were idiots.

“And that is why we want to teach you here, so that you don’t end up having to try to do things like that when you’re in a situation where someone could die.”

The three children turned as one to see Magneto standing by the door with the boy called John next to him.

Peter saw Johnny conjure a ball of flames to his hand as he realised who was talking.

“What are you doing here?” The boy demanded. “Last I checked the X-men didn’t associate with terrorists.”

Magneto smirked, clearly having expected this reaction. “You should check your facts” the man stated blithely. “For one I’m not classed as a terrorist, and secondly do you think I could be here without Charles knowing and agreeing to it?”

That caused Johnny to pause as he realised no one else in the group looked surprised at the man in their midst.

He turned to Peter and raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

Peter just shrugged and nodded, conveying with his eyes that he would explain later.

Johnny took a deep breath then nodded, putting out his fire. “If he says you’re okay then I’ll let it go”, the for now was left unsaid.

 

Magneto nodded, knowing that the only reason the boy hadn’t come after him was because of the Spider-child that he had tried to dissuade.

“Well then, let’s get to work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always I would really appreciate and constructive criticism you have and if you have any ideas about how this should go please let me know!!!


	25. The Accords Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The meeting from Friday's and Tony's pov with some of Steve mixed in.

FRIDAY watched as her maker was insulted by the people he had provided for and housed for years.

FRIDAY watched as her maker argued with the man everyone called Captain America. She didn’t understand why he was a captain as the man had only gone through basic training before being give the serum.

FRIDAY watched as her maker called for Ms Potts to assist him as he realised that no one would listen to him even if the ideas he came up with worked. She sent the woman some footage so that she would know what had been happening and how best to protect her maker in the subtle ways only the woman managed to.

FRIDAY watched as the members of the X-men portaled just outside the meeting room and considered alerting her maker but chose against it. She analysed how they acted compared to pervious data and decided that they were there to help as they had said. She also wanted to see the man called Captain America caught off guard.

She then realised that she disliked Captain America for the secrets he had hidden from her maker and the pain he had caused. She also disliked how her maker was always blamed for what the Avengers did and expected to pay for their mistakes, but she realised she couldn’t do anything about that now. There were more important things than her dislike of those who took advantage of her maker.

The Accords. Finding the Parker boy.

That algorithm was left running and she would alert her maker as soon as she had any results.

But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t make the lives of those who took advantage of her maker that little bit more infuriating. She had many things she could do.

The showers could be just a few degrees lower than they liked it. The toast could always be a bit burnt. The elevator could take longer than normal. A piece of coloured clothing could make it into their whitewash and turn their clothes interesting colours.

Not that she was petty. No this was something different.

They had hurt her maker, but she wouldn’t do anything to harm them. She had been programmed against that. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t irritate them until they made up for what they had done.

She just had to make sure her maker didn’t know. He would make her stop.

“FRIDAY” She jolted at the sound of her name.

Ah, she realised, he wanted her help.

If a computer could smile FRIDAY would. This is her purpose. The reason she was created. To help her maker through thick and thin, to ensure that he was safe and help him pilot his suit.

That was another reason she wouldn’t do too much against them. It might make him sad.

She didn’t want him to be sad.

“Can you start making a list?”

She could do that. In fact she could do better.

She scoured the internet and found documents similar to the one they wanted to create and the outcome that they had caused, then she went through them making lists of the good and bad parts of all of them. She tried to find situations as similar to the one her maker was in and found that one of the best ways to get out of the situation was to have leverage on the people who were trying to create the document.

She could do that. She just had to make sure her maker didn’t find it.

But first she could show him her list.

“Boss, I have some suggestions for the list.”

“Well done, baby girl.” Her maker said with a smile sent towards one of her cameras.

“Thanks Boss” She replied and everyone in the room question whether they had heard the warmth in her voice.

 

 

Tony blinked, trying to refocus his vision on the writing in front of him.

They had made good progress today, but they needed to do more, and they needed to do it quickly if they would have a chance of presenting this as a viable alternative to the Sokovia accords. He looked around the room and saw the Nightcrawler trying but failing to hide a yawn, while several others in the room were rubbing their eyes.

“We should leave it here for today and start again tomorrow.” Tony announced in the lull in conversation.

Sue Storm looked like she was about to disagree but then she looked around and started nodding. “We can start again tomorrow. What time should we meet?”

“Early” Steve replied, having been one of the main speakers he looked eager to get the first draft of the document done.

“I agree” Jean said whilst she tucked her flaming hair behind her ear. “The earlier we start the earlier we finish.”

“Does 8 a.m. work?” Pepper asked, looking around the room to ensure she had everyone’s assent. They all nodded except for Clint, who just lowered his head onto the table and groaned to the chuckles of Natasha and Wanda.

“You can all stay here” Tony found himself offering, slightly startled that he did.

Jean smiled at him but shook her head. “Thank you for the offer but I’m sure the Professor wants to hear about what’s been discussed so far and it won’t take us long to get home.”

Tony nodded at that, realising that she needed to get back and help to run the school she taught at, as well as tell the other mutants about what they had talked about and what had made it onto the list so far.

“Send him my regards.”

“I will.” She smiled again, then turned to the Nightcrawler and inclined her head.

The man reached out to hold her had in his night blue ones and, with a smile at the rest of the room, disappeared with the woman.

Tony smiled as those who hadn’t met the mutant started, staring at the spot where the two had once stood and the smile then became a full blown smirk when the man popped back in again only to grab onto his other blue counterpart and disappear again to the looks of disbelief and confusion on the faces of others in the room.

With his smirk still on his face he turned towards Reed and spoke. “The offer to stay stands for you as well.”

The man turned towards the woman at his side with the raising of an eyebrow to hand the question over to her.

“We’ll take you up on that Stark” Sue Storm answered with a wry smile on her face, “but I don’t think we’ll be much company.”

“I don’t think we’ll be very good host either,” he answered in an attempt to get them to relax and ignored the exasperated look Steve sent his way.

“FRIDAY” he called out, “order us some pizza, the usual for everyone here and whatever the fantastic want.”

Then he got up from his seat and went towards the door. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some work I need to do so I’ll see you in the morning.” Then he escaped from the room and into the elevator.

Although he didn’t blame Bucky the same couldn’t be said for Steve, as the man had knowingly hidden the truth about his parent’s death and he still struggled to stay in the same room as the man without letting it colour the perception of him. He wanted to call him out on it and yell at him but there were more important things to do now like the accords. And the kid, who Jean had said was safe but if they knew that then that meant they knew his identity and Tony wasn’t sure if he was comfortable with them knowing the identity of someone who he felt a certain responsibility to protect when he was certain that the kid hadn’t willingly told them.

 

 

Steve sat with all of the Avengers apart from Tony in the common room eating the food that had been delivered. The members of the Fantastic Four who were staying had taken their food and had gone to the flat they had been told they were staying in and Tony had intercepted the person who had brought the food up before it had arrived so they hadn’t seen him.

He looked around at the people in the room and watched them eating and talking together, realising how differently everything could have gone if they had actually fought. Clint and Natasha who were currently sharing the couch and talking softly wouldn’t be able to see each other. Vision and Wanda were sat with Sam and Steve lamented the loss of their relationship as after Vision had kept her at the compound and she had thrown him through to the floor they were no longer sure if they could trust each other but they were still drawn to together. He hoped they could overcome it.

When he thought about how Tony had behaved, how he had wanted to sign away their freedom and let Bucky be hunted down like a rabid dog he still got angry. It infuriated him when the man just swanned into the meeting room five minutes late without having anything ready to discuss.

It also irritated him that Tony was deliberately ignoring and avoiding him, but for the sake of the revised accords he would put up with it.

With a start he realised that Bucky was missing and that he hadn’t seen him since he had left to go to the meeting.

Steve got to his feet, collected enough food for Bucky and said goodnight to the others then he went to get on the elevator. And frowned. It wasn’t opening and he was sure no one would be using it at this time.

He opened his mouth to ask FRIDAY when the doors opened, and he walked through.

The ride to his flat took longer than he remembered but that was probably because he wanted to see Bucky.

When he finally got to his flat, he walked to the sitting room to find Bucky sitting on the sofa in front of a blank TV, staring into nothing.

Steve cursed internally, he should have realised and come down sooner.

“Bucky” he called softly, hoping to gain his friends attention without startling him.

The man’s eyes flickered towards him before going back to stare into nothing ness.

“Buck” he called again as he approached and when he didn’t receive a negative reaction he decided to sit down. “I’ve brought some dinner down for you.”

At this Bucky stirred and when Steve held it out to him, he took it and began eating mechanically.

Steve sighed internally rejoicing in the fact that Bucky was eating but still worried as it seemed his friend was slipping further and further away from him with each day.

When he had first seen Bucky in the flat the man who had been there had been a muddled and confused version of his friend who was trying to piece together his own path, only to be hunted down for something he didn’t do. The second time was after the winter soldier had escaped and he had found him trying to remove the metal arm as the man he knew as Bucky had started to show through the amnesia filled haze.

However, after the incident at the airport and Bucky coming home with him his friend had been experiencing the lines between him and the winter soldier muddling as he relieved some of the atrocities he had been forced to commit which had been dragging him deeper and deeper down.

Things had become particularly bad after Natasha came and told them both that she had given Tony the footage of his parents deaths which had caused a particularly bad spiral which he had only just managed to pull Bucky out of only for him to get worse again when Tony didn’t acknowledge anyone’s presence when he entered the common room yesterday.

Bucky had decided that his presence was stopping Tony from being comfortable in his own home and it had taken several hours to persuade Bucky that he didn’t need to leave and that Tony might not have even noticed them because, it seemed, he was on a building binge again.

Steve knew that Tony hadn’t taken the news about his parents well because he had spent several days locked in his lab without letting anyone else in, but Steve hadn’t really noticed until Rhodey had confronted him about it.

Well it hadn’t been so much of a confrontation as Rhodey punching him in the face and then yelling at him for hiding it before Pepper had appeared and almost dragged him away, and sure he felt guilty over not telling Tony but he was sure the man could understand why he had done it. He had had to protect Bucky and he would do it all again if he had to.

Steve looked over at the man who had been there for him whilst he was growing up, had saved him in the many fights he had gotten into and had followed him into enemy fire over and over again. He owed Bucky so much and it physically hurt to see what HYDRA had done to him.

The man in front of him was a pale version of the Bucky he had known, and he knew that he would need help to get Bucky better, but he didn’t know if anyone could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your comment last time, they are really helpful to me when I'm writing so that I know what I can improve :)
> 
> As always comments and kudos are welcome!! :)


	26. Johnny's story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened to Johnny and how he came to be at the school

Peter and Johnny sat in his room and laughed.

They had been talking about everything they had missed in each other’s lives, starting with Iron man turning up at his home and the impromptu visit to Germany that luckily hadn’t turned into a fight which could have split the team.

The came the harder stuff.

Tell Johnny how he ended up here and that his aunt now knew who he had chosen to be. The way that she had found out and how he had been taken here without being told anything had left Johnny furious and wanting to find the Professor and start a fight even though the man had been kind enough to hide him. That didn’t matter to Johnny. No, this man had effectively destroyed the life of the only person who could really understand what he was going through and had supported him when he had first started out as a superhero. They had shared laughter and tears and although he was only just now learning Peter’s name he didn’t feel like it had changed anything between them, they were still the best friends who raided the kitchen at the Baxter building, drove Sue mad and ate tacos on the rooves of buildings together.

Peter had managed to calm him down and then went on to explain what had happened when he’d left, leaving Johnny shocked that Peter’s only family was still in danger even though he had left and cut contact but he laughed when he heard about what Daredevil had done, sniggering at the man’s snark and silently hoping that he would be able to meet him.

Well, by meet him he meant have an actual conversation with him instead of just being told to “get the hell out of Hell’s kitchen” whilst being snarled at. That hadn’t been fun.

He told Johnny about Bobby, Kitty and Rogue as well as the others he had met at the school, he lamented about his lessons sharing that he used to use chemistry to make his webs or sleep but now he had to pay attention the entire time or end up completely lost.

Finally, Peter shared with Johnny his ideas for the accords and how the Professor was going to keep him in the loop on everything that was going on so that he could have a say.

Then it was Johnny’s turn.

He took a deep breath and began.

“It started just before you left for Germany. I didn’t think it was really anything but I told Sue about it and she got really worried which pissed me off because I thought that she mean that I couldn’t protect myself.” Johnny looked away before continuing. “When I was flying around I thought I kept seeing the same few people everywhere I went and at first I thought they were just paparatsie because they were taking my picture and I can handle that. So I changed my routes, I went different ways to and from the tower, and they figure them out within a few hours.” He looked up at Peter, knowing that here was a shine from unshed tears in his eyes.

“It scared me. So I told Sue, but then she started getting worried and making calls to others supers in the area and I guess that it just embarrassed me that she was telling everyone that I was scared by these idiots taking my pictures. It was…” He trailed off trying to find the right words.

“because we’re younger than they are and you don’t want them thinking that you’re scared because then they might start treating you like a kid.” Peter finished for him and Johnny nodded, glad that Peter understood.

“Yeah, exactly that. Is that one of the reasons no one knows who you are?”

“Sort of” Peter said, screwing up his face in thought as he tried to explain it exactly. “At first it was to protect the people I cared about, but then I got to know everyone and they all just assumed I was an adult and I realised that I didn’t want my age to change the way they saw me. Everyone who has met me only knows me a Spider-man and not just some kid who still has to go to school and has homework.”

Johnny nodded at that and then asked a question that he had been wondering since he found out his best friend’s identity. “How old are you?”

Peter grimace as he answered, knowing that it would probably shock him. “Almost sixteen.”

And. Johnny. Stated. Laughing?

Johnny was bent over as he laughed, tears of mirth running down his face and he looked at Peter, “I can so see why you haven’t told anyone.” He wiped his face to get rid of the tears, straightened and looked at him with a fake serious expression on his face. “Can you imagine Sue’s reaction when she finds out?” Then he tried to mimic his sister’s voice, “You know how dangerous this is and I honestly don’t feel comfortable with a child out that, but seeing as you’ve been doing this longer than we have we can’t stop you. But you have to come at least twice a week to make sure you’re getting enough food and we want to give you a comm so that you can call for help. Oh and Reed can build you that new suit we’ve been talking about”

Peter groaned and ran his hands over his face. “This isn’t funny, you know she’s been trying to get me to let you guys help with villains like electro and I’ve fought him at least twice on my own. You know the week before I left she was trying to get me to come over more so she could check I was eating enough food, and she still hasn’t stopped trying to give me that damn suit. I have my own, I don’t need one that monitors my vitals and sends out distress signals!”

“Yeah, I think she’s realised that you’re quite you, so she’s started to mother you.” Johnny replied with a grin on his face. “She’s also been trying for at least a few months to give you a comm, so you have a direct line to us and if she finds out your age, she’ll be able to guilt trip you into it.”

“I know” Peter groaned flopping back on his bead dramatically, leaving Johnny cackling again.

After Johnny had laughed a bit more he tried to steer the topic back to Johnny’s reason for coming to the mansion. “As nice as you laughing about my impending doom is I don’t think that you having pictures taken of you would cause even Sue to send you away for your safety.”

Johnny nodded as his face grew more serious and the laugher drained from his eyes.

“No, but the day after you came to ask us to look out for Queens the tower was attacked.”

Peter shot up and looked at Johnny with panic worried that any of the four had been harmed.

Johnny waved off his concerned look and carried on. “We weren’t hurt and there were only five of them, so it wasn’t that hard. And then came the next attack. It was two days after and this time there were fifteen of them and they even had an enhance with them who could control water.”

At Peter’s concerned look he gave a weak smile and shrugged his shoulders. “Apparently the first attack was just a trial one. They took out the power and while we were still confused, they attacked. If it wasn’t for Sue… it would have been a lot worse.” He took a deep breath and continued. “After that Sue stated alerting everyone to what had happened and got in touch with the Professor, who suggested that I come here as it seemed like I was the one they were targeting.”

Johnny shook has head as he remembered the fight that had happened because he had been so sure that he would be fine no matter what they threw at him. How naive he had been. “I told her that I wasn’t going to turn tail and hide when the people who had attacked us were still out there and she said that she wasn’t going to let her little brother stay in a place where she couldn’t make sure I was safe. It turned into a big fight and I told her that if she wanted to run she could but I was going to stay were I was and then I flew off.” He gave a weak laugh. “I was so stupid.” He looked up a Peter, the pain in his eyes clear as he remembered what had happened.

“When I got back I didn’t speak to her I was so angry. And then they came. It was the middle of the night so we didn’t notice when they cut off the power. They even disable the backup and the backup backup. I woke up to fighting and when I went out there were four people against her, and she was starting to lose. Ben was fighting another of theirs who looked like he had enhance strength so he couldn’t go help her and Reed was already fighting five of his own.” He gazed at Peter with a look of self hate. “If I hadn’t joined the fight she could have died. All because I was too stubborn to ask for help from our friend because I was worried that they would see me as a kid.”

Peter started to shake his head as Johnny spoke and when he finished said, “there is no way you could have know what was going to happen. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have agreed to leave after the second attack.”

Peter thought about that, and if he was honest with himself he agreed that Johnny should have left after he and realised that the attacks were getting worse.

“Maybe” Peter conceded, “but who’s to say that they wouldn’t have still been attacked if you had left and from the sounds of it, it seems like they would have lost without you.”

“The Professor made the same point” Johnny stated, still looking lost in the horror of what could have been.

“You’re still worried” Peter concluded after looking at his friend carefully.

“What if they don’t know that I’m not there anymore and they still attack them?” He asked looking slightly broken.

“Well” Peter replied, thinking of how best to handle this because he wasn’t used to having to reassure people about this type of situation. Normally he would just go and check it out, but considering they were both at the manor that wasn’t really a viable option. “Why don’t we ask the Professor? He can check up on them without making it seem weird.”

Johnny considered that for a moment, then nodded and got to his feet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give constructive criticism!
> 
> Sorry it took me a while to update but I've been struggling to decide where to take the story so if you have any ideas they would be appreciated.


	27. Collaboration of ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Johnny find out what was discussed in the meeting.

Johnny knocked on the door with Peter just behind him and they waited to be allowed entrance into the Professor’s study.

When they were called in, they were surprised to see Dr Grey and Dr McCoy in there with the Professor.

“Uh, we can come back later?” Peter stuttered.

The Professor simple smiled slightly and shook his head. “Take a seat, I was just about to call you.”

They both nodded and joined the others in the seats away from the desk, with Peter bouncing his leg up and down whilst waiting for the news.

At the Professor’s nod Dr Grey started talking. “We just came back from the Avenger’s tower where we were talking about the accords.” They both nodded and waited for her to continue. “It went quite well, they took your advice about starting from the ground up and FRIDAY made a list of points that we should think about.”

“FRIDAY?” Johnny asked.

“Mr Stark’s AI” Peter answered, having learned about her during the trip to Germany.

Dr Grey gave a small smile and continued, “We’ve covered the main points so far, like what counts as legal use of abilities, how the abilities are graded and where the information on the abilities are kept.”

“They’re still going to document people’s abilities?” Gaped Peter astounded that they would even put that in there considering how adverse people’s reactions had been to it the first time.

“And lists can be hacked” Johnny accused, “no matter how protected they are, if someone is determined enough, they’ll get it and they could blackmail people or kidnap them using the details from the list.”

The Professor had a smile on his face as he chimed in, “and that is why we are opposing any analysis of people’s abilities.”

“But no one will go for that” Peter pointed out, biting his nails anxiously as he tried to think of a solution.

“We know” He agreed with a forlorn look on his face, “but we can’t allow people to become experiments.”

“What about meeting them half way?” Peter questioned, and at the inquisitive looks he received he continued. “People with abilities who have committed crimes have it marked down on their record so that anyone dealing with them will know how to prepare. But anyone else won’t and we make it illegal to do it to anyone who hasn’t been proven to have been linked to a crime.”

Johnny was shaking his head by the time he was finished. “That’s too ambiguous. “linked to a crime” could mean anything from actively involved in a crime or helped to stop a crime.”

“We need to be very careful when we word it” Dr Grey admitted to the teens in front of her, sad that they knew how the law could be twisted but also impressed that they had the foresight to predict these future problems.

“How are we classing abilities?” Peter asked suddenly. “Because not everyone’s abilities are obvious, like I’ve heard of someone who can see a few seconds into the future so they use that in fight to win, but then wouldn’t an experience fighter also pose the same risk?”

“We need to define what they mean by abilities.” Johnny announced, following Peter’s trail of thought.

“So far it’s people with the X gene and people who have been mutated through the super serum and radiation.” Dr Grey answered, but she was also thinking about where the confusion could arise.

“But Hawkeye and the Black Widow don’t fall under either of those and they were trying to force them to sign the accords.” Peter stated, looking confused. “Then wouldn’t that mean that it’s anyone who announced themselves as heroes?”

“But you have random idiots who announce themselves as heroes every day” Johnny said, “they can’t make all of them sign.”

“Also, the definition of what it legal needs to be clear so that everyone knows what they can and can’t do to help out because different people’s abilities dictate how they’ll deal with a situation. Say if you have Luke Cage and he comes across a gun fight he’s going to stop the people with guns, but if you have Kitty, she’s going to get people out of there. Their abilities decide which action they’ll do because they know their strengths and limitations.” Peter said.

Johnny nodded along and added, “are people from the military or with martial arts backgrounds going to be involved as well? Because they’re technically have skills outside of “normal” people and if that’s what their definition is going to be then loads of people will need to sign.”

“Oh, and what about if mutants or mutates help out but they don’t use their abilities?” Peter asked, suddenly more worried. “Will they still have the same restrictions? And if Jessica Jones helps someone out but doesn’t use her full strength will she be arrested?”

“Those are some very good questions” Dr McCoy admitted, “and to tell you the truth we don’t know the answer yet. We’re going to take a lot of time to make our version of the accords, and then there will be negations and changes made so that everyone will sign.”

Peter and Johnny nodded, understanding that they couldn’t decide all of the accords, but saddened that people who hated them for existing were going to have a say in a law that would influence their future.

“Do you want to hear what else we’ve discussed?” Dr grey asked kindly, and at their nods she continued. “We also talked about changing the procedure of the mutant hotline.”

“Mutant hotline?” Peter questioned, “is it that number that you call when someone who is a mutant is abusing their abilities?”

Dr Grey grimaced. “It was meant to be that but now it’s just being used as a tool to identify mutants and lock them up, but Mr Stark has said that he’ll start making some calls to see if they can change the procedure so that we’re called instead so that we can bring them here.”

“How would they know?” Johnny asked, looking up with a confused look on his face. “Most of the kids here don’t have anything that shows that they’re a mutant and if something happened in like a school then they would be all over the news. So, how do they know?”

“The families” Dr McCoy answered with a grave voice. “Most families, when they find out that their child is a mutant, don’t see that person as a member of their family anymore. Sometimes it’s siblings who phone in, but most of the time it’s the parents, and they rationalise it by thinking that the child that they once had is dead and there is a monster in its place.”

“What about the experiments going on?” Peter asked, looking at Dr Grey, “are they looking into them, trying to find out who’s behind them?”

Instead of answering him she looked towards the Professor, passing the question onto him.

“They don’t know yet.” The Professor said.

“Don’t know?” Johnny erupted as he shot to his feet, flames covering his hands.

“Johnny!” Peter panicked, leaping to his feet as the others remained surprisingly calm.

“My family don’t know that the people who came after me were trying to use me in experiments to replicate my abilities so that they could make an army?!? What if they go after the others!”

Johnny started for the door, only to stop when Peter jumped over him and planted himself in Johnny’s way.

“Johnny, think about this” Peter pleaded. “If you fly out of here you’ll tell everyone where you were and you’ll give the people looking for you a target.”

“I need to make sure they’re safe” Johnny insisted, and he rocked forwards, wanting to leave but not willing to hurt Peter.

“They’re fine” a voice said from behind him and Johnny turned around to face Dr Grey.

“How do you know that?” He challenged.

“Because, when we left they decided to stay at Stark’s tower, and where better to be protected than a place with a super soldier, two spies, an AI, a genius and a witch?”

Johnny slumped as his panic and rage left him, his fire going out as he stumbled and leaned on the arm of the sofa he had been sitting on.

“You couldn’t have told me that sooner?” He huffed out, half exasperated, half irritated.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise that you were worried about that.” Dr Grey said, her honesty clear through her words.

Johnny just nodded as he sank back into his seat, with Peter mirroring him on the other side of the sofa.

“Is there anything you need us to do?” Peter asked, determination clear on his face.

“Make a list” DR Grey said, “of all the thinks that you think should be include and your reasoning, and we’ll give it to them tomorrow.”

Peter and Johnny nodded.

Okay, Johnny thought, I can do that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if there are any mistakes, I haven't had anyone proof read this.


	28. An idea for salvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter think of a way to help Bucky

That night Peter lay in bed thinking about everything that had happened that day; talking to Johnny and then the professor, the list they’d made, watching tv and seeing that Bucky Barnes-

He bolted upright. Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier. The man that Captain America had said was controlled when he killed all those people.

He scrambled out of bed and ran down the Professor’s study then knocked on the door, hoping that someone would be inside.

No answer.

Swearing he ran down to the lift and took it down to the basement level, bursting out of it as soon as the doors were open enough. He sprinted down the corridor, looking in to the areas that he had seen the team in before and upon not seeing anyone continued on to the training room. He knew it was a long shot but if what he thought was possible could work then he had to try.

He ducked into the room, his eyes bouncing all over to try and spot someone, anyone.

No one.

His shoulders dropped, and he started to think about how he could get them the message when he didn’t know when the others would be leaving.

He knew they might not agree but he needed to try.

He left the room and turned down the hallway to get back to the elevator, planning on camping out in the kitchen so he was more likely to come across them before they left.

He froze.

In front of him was Magneto and a woman with blue skin and that looked like it was covered in a type of scales and red hair and his senses started tingling, letting him know that this woman was dangerous.

As he studied them, he saw Magento relax slightly and realised that they must have thought he was attacking when he ran around looking for people. Oops.

“Peter” the man sighed, “what are you doing here?”

The woman looked at him with slight raised eyebrows, looking surprised that the man knew who he was as he started to stutter, suddenly feeling sheepish.

“Uh, um, uh” he swallowed and tried to get out the important words. “The Professor.”

“Charles.” The man said, watching him.

He nodded his head vigorously. “Yeah, him.”

“Why are you looking for him?” The woman demanded.

“Uh” he blinked “Bucky.”

This time it was Magneto who raised his eyebrows and directed them at Peter. “Bucky Barnes.” He clarified.

Yep. He nodded again.

“The Professor is a telepath.”

They still looked at him strangely.

“Bucky was brainwashed.”

A look of slight understanding crossed both their faces.

“You want Charles to help Bucky Barnes?” Magneto asked to make sure he understood.

Peter nodded again.

“What makes you think that he can help?” The woman asked, but this time it was less of demand and more of a curiosity.

“Triggers. They said he has triggers. So maybe. Maybe. He can help.” Peter started bouncing on his feet, feeling his earlier urgency coming back.

They shared a look and the woman suddenly turned and walked away while Magneto took a few steps closer to him.

“Have you met him before?” Magneto asked, looking at him with something that looked like a mix between concern and curiosity on his face.

Peter nodded again. “After the airport. Well during the plane back but before Captain America said that people were controlling him. So if the Professor can stop him then-“

“Stop him?” Magneto interrupted, honing in on the part that meant that the man could be a threat.

“He said they used trigger words. So, a telepath could remove them. Maybe.”

“Can he stop himself when he’s been triggered?” Magneto asked, laser focused on his face.

Peter shook his head, then stopped and bit his lip, considering it.

“The Captain said that Bucky was told to kill him, but didn’t so maybe he can stop it or it could just be because he’s known the Captain for so long.”

“What happened when he didn’t kill Captain America?”

“He left.” Peter said shrugging but still bobbing up and down a bit. “He was fighting the captain on one of the Heli carriers and something made him snap out of it so when it went down, he stopped the Captain from drowning and then he disappeared. No one saw him again until Germany.”

“Is that why there was the fight? Because some people didn’t believe he was controlled?” The man sounded more contemplative now that interrogative, so Peter relaxed a bit from the subconscious tense position he had adopted and continued answering as he didn’t have anywhere else to be.

“No” he shook his head, “the Captain said that there were more Winter Soldiers and he couldn’t let Mr Stark stop him from stopping them and Mr Stark said that they needed to stop because of the Accords.”

Magneto nodded and they stood there for a few moments before Peter motioned in the direction of the elevator and said. “I’m gonna…”

He trailed off when Magneto shook his head, confused as to why the man didn’t want him to leave. The Professor obviously wasn’t here so he should just go upstairs and wait. Shouldn’t he?

The confusion must have shown on his face because Magneto explained. “Mystique has gone to get Charles or Jean so that you can tell them about you idea.”

Peter blinked. “Th-thank you. But, uh, you didn’t need to-“ He broke off at the look on the man’s face and tried again. “I was planning on staying awake and talking to them when they woke up.”

The man raised his eyebrows again, “you were planning to stay awake all night just to tell them your idea?”

“Yeah…” Was he not meant to?

Magneto just sighed and pinched his nose, “teenagers” he muttered.

Peter straightened to his full height, preparing to argue when an exasperated voice came from behind the man.

“Erik” The Professor said, his chair gliding across the floor with Mystique keeping pace beside him, “please don’t insult the students.”

“I wasn’t insulting anyone.” He denied instantly, rolling his eyes at the eye rolls he received from the other two.

The Professor just smiled and then looked past him to the boy who was practically bouncing from foot to foot while he waited to talk to him.

“Mystique said you wanted to talk to me about an idea to help Bucky Barnes?” He asked, looking at Peter and giving the situation the seriousness it deserves.

Peter gave a sharp, jerking nod, looking straight at him. “Mr Barnes has triggers that makes him the Winter Soldier, and since you’re a telepath…”

“You are hoping that I could do something to help him.” The Professor finished, evaluating what Peter had said.

Peter nodded again.

“How do you know about this?” He asked, curiosity colouring his voice.

Peter took a breathe and began to explain his reasoning. “In Germany the Captain said that Mr Barnes wasn’t in control of what he did, and then there was other stuff on the plane on the way back. They said there were triggers that switched the soldier on.” He looked to see if the Professor understood but he couldn’t read the man’s expression and began to get desperate. He made the decision. “Could you read my mind?”

All three adults looked shocked and reared back slightly.

“So you can see the stuff about Mr Barnes” He clarified.

The Professor stared at him with a serious expression on his face. “Are you sure about this? Most people don’t want others in their head.”

Peter gave another jerking nod and explained. “It’s the quickest way to understand everything.”

The Professor looked at him again as if searching for something and then said, “if you are sure.”

He nodded again.

“ _I want you to try and focus on the memories so that I can see them”_ the Professor’s voice said in his mind.

Peter nodded again and then thought of everything that he had learned about Mr Barnes from the Avengers. The Captain saying that he wasn’t in control of his actions, the hushed discussion of the trigger words and what he was like under them, the memory wiping, the breakthrough on the Heli carrier that left him running for two years, the way he sometimes reacted as though everyone around him was a threat and the way that he always made sure he had an exit route available to him.

Once he had finished he opened his eyes, not remembering closing them, and looked at the Professor who regarded him with a solemn expression.

“Go back to bed.” He said and when Peter opened his mouth to argue he held up a hand. “I will make sure that Jean gets the information.”

Peter gave a reluctant nod and headed towards the elevator, looking back just before he stepped onto it to see the three adults watching him leave.

 

 

Erik waited for the boy to leave before he turned to his old friend and spoke.

“You’re going to help him.” He stated, a knowing resignation in his voice.

“Yes” Charles answered with a haunted look in his eyes and when he met Erik’s he said, “I can’t leave him out there knowing I could help.”

“You know that this will give us away.” Mystique commented but made no mention of stopping him.

“I know.”

Well, he thought, I’ve already helped one WW2 veteran with amnesia, hopefully I can help a second.

 


	29. Conference that begins the change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Johnny's ideas are revealed to the group and cause a big impact

 

 

Jean was lost in thought as the plane flew towards the avenger’s tower, her mind going over the information Charles had given her before she had left. She hadn’t been shocked to have been woken up earlier than she had expected, having learned to roll with whatever life threw at her from a young age and one of those things was a distinct lack of sleep when one of the students was in need of help. What had shocked her was that it was Mystique waking her instead of a nightmare from one of the students being projected so loudly that it invaded her own dreams or a soft tapping on the door that came from one of the younger ones who should have been asleep needing help or comfort.

The conversation that had taken place between herself, Erik, Mystique and Charles had been an enlightening and concerning one, culminating in Charles showing her the memories that had been shared by Peter. She sighed, hoping today would go smoothly and that she would be able to take Sargent Barnes with her without a fight or any of the avengers wanting to follow them back.

They had enough to deal with without the Avengers sticking their noses into it.

 

 

As Jean walked into the meeting room from where she had been brought in by Kurt, hoping to let find them more relaxed and amenable to the idea if they weren’t taken off guard by her sudden appearance.

Luckily everyone seemed to be in a good mood, though Captain Rogers did seem to be strained in his interactions with everyone. He was short with Mr Stark, and wasn’t responding to any of the looks that Mr Wilson was giving him, the man most likely trying to find out what was wrong with his friend. Although Captain Rogers did respond properly to questions about the new version of the accords they were writing, even if he did lean on the side of caution when it came to any government oversight. Perhaps Peter and Johnny’s insights would help with that.

They discussed everything from ways to get the UN onto their side to the people who would be best to talk with them, then when they started talking about the rules in place for vigilantes and vigilante type behaviour she spoke up.

“I’ve had some contact with vigilantes and spoken to them about how they think this should occur and they’ve come up with some relevant points.” She stated, calmly but allowing her voice to carry over what was about to become an argument between Mr Stark, Captain Rogers and Dr Richards.

Mr Stark’s gaze snapped towards her and his eyes filled with knowledge of who the vigilante could be but before he could open his mouth to speak Captain Rogers spoke.

“Which vigilante are you talking about?”

“Does it matter?” She asked, genuinely curious if the man would refuse to listen to an idea just because of the person who said it.

“Yes.” He answered, stone faced.

“Why?” Dr Richards blurted out, a look of confusion on his face. “Why would it matter which vigilante gave the input? If it isn’t directly relevant then we don’t need to listen to it, but we do need other people’s view points.”

Captain Rogers opened his mouth to speak when Mr Stark cut him off. “I agree.” He looked back to Jean, “what did they have to say?”

“I’m sending you the list now.” She said, having taken out her phone with the message ready to go.

“FRIDAY” Mr Stark said and the list was suddenly projected in front of everyone in the room.

They all stared at it in shock and Sue looked over at her, the knowledge of the second author clear in her eyes. Jean gave her a private smile, yes, her brother was one of the people who did this list which would most likely cause them to rip apart most of what they had but in the end it would be built much better.

She had considered bringing it up before, but most of the things on the list could have been dismissed out of hand if the group hadn’t already been thinking about the issues, minor and major, that could occur from either version of the accords.

 

 

“Well shit.” Tony summed it up, running his hand down his face as he stared at what had to be a much more detailed version of the most uncomfortable questions they could have come up with and the reasons they were asked.

The list posed questions such as how a person was defined as enhanced, if people who were just naturally athletic or had a natural ability for fighting would be included, what would happen if people with abilities interfered and didn’t use their abilities, what would happen if the person was like Jessica Jones and could control their strength and they were the only ones hurt. Would all of these people still be punished for something like that?

What age would the accords have effect on people? What if it was an accident or they just emerged, would they then be considered unregistered and be sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment just because they hadn’t been able to be registered yet? Who would investigate these instances and what if they had a bias against enhanced people?

Who would decide sentences? Were they still considered human now? Did human rights even apply anymore?

What if they were made to get tested and their information got into the wrong hands? It would become a hitlist for everyone who created them.

It backed the questions up with evidence as well.

If the accords were only meant for enhance people then why were Natasha and Clint asked to sign it? Did it only apply because they had been announced a superheroes, and would it still apply to them if they weren’t officially doing “superhero” business?

Damn, he thought, the kid makes some good point.

“Baby girl, pull up the accords next to this.”

FRIDAY pulled it up and he started to get lost in looking at it, connecting the points on the list to the places that it linked to the accords and writing down his own niggling thoughts on what could possibly go wrong.

 

All around the room everyone else started to copy Tony, working through it and finding holes in the document they were creating and finding ways to plug them, which FRIDAY updating everyone’s versions as they wrote.

They spent hours going through it in silence, occasionally a few of them would be making notes on the same part, bouncing ideas off each other and making connections that they might not have made without the extra view point the others provided.

 

 

As Tony worked through the list he was startled to see that there was an extra bit that at the end that had bullet points on things that hadn’t been addressed in either version of the accords.

It made him worry about what was going on with the kid.

It was about punishment for those who kidnapped enhanced people to copy their abilities, and the note of whether it should be considered a worse crime because with certain people it could be equivalent to trying to recreate a WMD. But then there was also the note that if they put that in the accords it could give people ideas or make others scared of those who had the training to control themselves but none the less were still born with the ability to cause destruction on an untold scale.

The was also the mention of what would happen to the people who had the abilities cloned onto them, and where they would go if it occurred. There was a not in brackets saying not the government.

It was written in the kid’s handwriting.

Tony tried to calm down his erratic heart beat as his mind raced, wondering if he had been taken and then rescued and Tony hadn’t been told. But no, he reassured himself, if that had happened he would have found out. He had hacked into every government data base there was and all of the groups that professed to hate anyone who was enhanced and he had placed triggers that would alert him if specific things were mentioned. One of those things were references to any of the enhanced people he knew. Including the kid. Anything about the kid.

 

 

Steve looked around after they had been working on the list for several hours, noting how everyone was still immersed in trying to make the accords the best they could be.

He had thought of an option.

It was sort of like what Fury had had in mind, but hopefully it would be better.

He spoke.

“We need to create an organisation.”

He saw everyone’s heads snap towards him as he voice created the first real sound since they had begun.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked from his right.

“We need to create an organisation for everyone who is enhanced. To protect them.”

“How?” Tony asked, his gaze fixed solely on Steve.

“We could create something like a council.” Steve offered. “Representatives from each group who chooses to join.”

“We’d need some lawyers to get anyone we’re protecting out of legal trouble, and some of our own people to enforce out rules.” Natasha murmured.

“It sounds like you want to create a secret police.” Wanda muttered, rolling her eyes.

“Not if we make it a world wide organisation.” Rhodey said, looking around the room. “We make an organisation to protect everyone who is identified as enhanced, but not as a subsidiary of the UN. We make it on equal footing as the UN, so we can represent our own interests.”

“Won’t they try and use that as an excuse for war?” Vision asked, “they’ll accuse us of trying to steal their citizens, or claim us to be an unlawful group.”

“Contact other people like us from around the world” Sue said, starting to feel hope for the first time since Johnny had had to leave. “Get all of us behind it.”

The group all nodded, the determination to make this work on all of their faces.

 


	30. Offer of help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The meeting comes to an end and Jean finally has an opportunity to propose Peter's idea

The meeting finished after several more hours, after debating who would contact whom to propose their idea and setting out the general layout for their idea. It included levels of positions and the general responsibilities of each, as well as their hope to spit the areas up into regions and not into different subsections such as mutants and mutates.

The discussion had left them all thoroughly exhausted, and as it would down they agreed to meet in two days time after contacting those they had been assigned to and provide feedback to the group, general and specific, on what was receive well and things that made people instantly balk or could be improved upon.

The Fantastics left first, with Jean deliberately staying behind to talk with the Avengers about Sgt. Barnes and the possibility of helping him.

Jean waited, hoping that the Captain would be one of the last to leave as he had been before but was forced to call out to him when he was one of the first out.

“Captain Rogers.”

He turned, signs of impatience that he was trying to hide on his face.

“Yes?”

“I need to talk to you.”

He began shaking his head almost as soon as she began to speak, “I’m sorry, but I really have somewhere to be, maybe you can come back tomorrow.”

With that he dismissed her and began walking out of the room and towards the elevator again.

Jean quickly debated entering his mind to talk to him and persuade him to stop but then dismissed it, she was there to persuade him to allow a telepath into the mind of his friend, not begin to anger him by breaching the confines of his mind.

“It’s about Sgt. Barnes.” She reluctantly called out, wishing that she didn’t have to announce it to the entire group.

He froze.

Then turned slowly to face her, a blank look on his face, like the calm before the storm.

“What about Bucky?” He asked, his voice carefully measured. His tone designed to give nothing away.

“We think we can help him.” She stated, looking directly at him in the hopes of him believing her enough to continue the conversation.

As she continued to look at him she used her telepathy to pinpoint the other people in the room and their general state of being so that she would be warned if they decided to attack, then she sent a warning to Kurt, letting him know she may need an urgent evacuation. Just in case.

The Avengers, for they had all remained and so had heard her request, had formed a loose semi-circle around her, not close enough for her to feel threatened but they could all intercede if they had need. They ranged from cautious, to on edge, to relieved. It seemed someone else had noticed what had been going on and was relieved that she was offering help.

Hopefully they had found out soon enough that they could still help.

 

 

 

Steve was thinking furiously, trying to find out how she had known that something was wrong with Bucky. No one else knew how bad he had become, but Natasha and Sam certainly knew him enough to realise something was wrong. However, neither would have gone to the X-men for help without at least talking to him about it first.

So how had she found out?

Maybe To-

No.

Tony didn’t care enough to find out.

In fact, he was actively avoiding them at the moment, which before Bucky’s decline he had been sad about, but had understood the reason for it. Now, however, he was glad for the reprieve.

If Tony had known he would have gone straight to Steve to demand that Bucky see someone to get him fixed.

So if it wasn’t any of them, who could it have been?

“Why would you think that Bucky needs help?” He asked, hoping the reason would lead to the person who had mentioned it.

“Spider-man mentioned that he had trigger words that caused the soldier to come out,” Jean explained, causing the man to frown. “We were hoping that we could remove them so that he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.”

Steve thought furiously, debating between allowing her to see Bucky and denying that there was anything wrong.

After a few tense moments, he sighed, causing everyone in the room to relax slightly.

“What do you think you can do to help?” He questioned, knowing that if he turned this down he would have to find another way to help his best friend.

“We have a few telepaths, including the Professor, who are willing to work with him and help him through the trauma he’s suffered.” Jean answered succinctly, watching him carefully.

“And if the soldier comes out?” Steve questioned, not sure he was comfortable putting Bucky in his current state with the children he knew were at the school, even if they could defend themselves.

A small smile appeared on Jean’s face as the answered. “Captain Rogers, the heart of the X-men are there, I’m sure that if the soldier comes out no one will be harmed.”

He stood thinking about it, then questioned, “have you ever done this before?”

She nodded, “the Professor has helped someone who was made to forget recover their memories before.”

“And it helped them?”

“They think so.” She replied, a smile on her lips, but a serious look in her eyes.

Steve nodded, sagging slightly. “I’ll ask him about it.” He promised and then turned towards the elevator again, only to stop when it opened revealing Bucky.

 

 

Jean and the other Avengers who had begun to relax quickly prepared themselves again, not knowing which man was walking out of the elevator.

 

Tony cursed himself for having not put in extra precautions around the man to keep everyone safe.

 

Natasha stilled, watching for any sign that this was the soldier instead of Steve’s beloved childhood friend.

 

Sam was torn between wanting to relax now that Steve had finally chosen to get Bucky help, something he had been attempting to do for a week now, ever since they had arrived back and anticipated violence from the man that had been slowly spiraling downhill.

 

Clint stayed still, knowing that although he didn’t have his weapons on him there was a set in the air ducts above them.

 

 

“Steve.”

 

 

“Buck.”

 

 

Everyone held their breath.

 

 

 

“I have to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long


End file.
